


The One Where Zuko's Hair Matches Sokka's and Other Tales

by MuffinLance



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: #Yuyan Raise Zuko, Avatar Zuko (Avatar), Chaos Avatar Zuko, Fire Lily AU, Gen, Hama Raises Zuko AU, Mother Hama AU, Salvage AU, Towards the Sun AU, Vaatu adopts Zuko, Yuyan Raise Zuko, Zuko is a Hufflepuff, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, dragon!zuko, herbalist!Zuko, nonbinary!Zuko, phoenix!zuko, photosynthetic!Zuko, pirate!Zuko, trans!zuko
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 42
Words: 19,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21632206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/pseuds/MuffinLance
Summary: Ficlets from Tumblr. Includes bonus content for Towards the Sun and Salvage, Hama Raises Zuko AU, Herbalist!Zuko, Yuyan!Zuko, Chaos Avatar Zuko, and more. Also Zuko is a Hufflepuff and I will fight you.UPDATE 2/18--Salvage: Panuk's Backstory
Relationships: Hama & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Vaatu & Zuko, Zuko & Zuko's Crew (Avatar)
Comments: 2053
Kudos: 7847
Collections: Good_or_Decent_Zuko_With_a_dash_of_Iroh_Azula_Gaang, The Best of Zuko, avatar tingz





	1. Sugar Snap (Towards the Sun)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Towards the Sun AU. This ficlet IS canon. Herein lies the origin story of Sugar Snap the very angry turtleduck.
> 
> Anonymous asked:
> 
> So TtS 17 was a punch in the feels, as usual, but I need to point out the most important detail in this chapter. When Zuko was Fire Lord, despite being sick, exhausted and on the edge of a nervous breakdown, he still took the time to declare that there would be no eating turtleducks in the palace. This boy is just so SOFT. I can’t even.
> 
> captainkirkk answered:
> 
> Can you just imagine his reaction when he realised the palace kitchens were serving wild turtleducks?? He would’ve lost his MIND. He doesn’t make demands on the staff very often, because he trusts them to do their jobs more efficiently than he ever could, but he will not stand for merciless turtleduck slaughter!!

There’s an epic shouting match in the kitchen. It’s the first time Zuko has really met the chef, and the first time he’s dared raised his voice since being brought up out of prison, but he’s pretty sure no one’s going to dethrone him over dietary restrictions and anyway there are lines he Will Not See Crossed.

The chef’s arguments for turtleduck’s general savoriness and the way their shells make the perfect base for soups and stews starts out quiet but impassioned. Zuko is Not Hearing This Stop Talking and the chef is getting less quiet too and the kitchen staff behind Zuko is trying to signal to their boss to stop, no, count to ten, don’t shout at the Fire Lord but the chef is having none of this and NIETHER IS ZUKO, YOU ARE HEREBY GRANTED ROYAL PERMISSION TO BE WRONG FOREVER BUT NO MORE TURTLEDUCK COOKING AND IF YOU DO I’LL, I’LL, I’LL THINK OF SOMETHING BAD OKAY!

And then he grabs the still-quacking box on the counter (which is how he was drawn into the kitchen in the first place, because he’d just been hurrying past composing new messages to the Earth Kingdom in his head and why weren’t they replying when–-was that quacking? Inside the palace? From the… kitchen? Oh no–-)

(His guards had not previously been aware of how fast His Majesty could run when properly motivated. Captain Izumi later had them all running laps for losing their lord, even for a second.)

And. And Zuko marches the box to the turtleduck pond, and pries it open, and be free–- _sweet Agni not the face why did everything good he ever tried to do literally end up going for his face?_

(The box contained a wild turtleduck mom and her half-grown babies, which the chef would argue were naturally tender).

And that was how Zuko’s guards ended up rescuing their lord from a pile of hard-shelled floofy fury.

And the chef. The chef canceled all orders for turtleduck. And fell a little in love, with this Fire Lord who had shouting matches over the safety of water fowl, and clearly needed fattening up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #turtleduck to the face is an accurate descriptor of Zuko's life now #Zuko doesn't know why shouting at people makes them like him more #that is not how that usually works


	2. A Step-By-Step Guide to ***ing Your Dai Li (Towards the Sun)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Towards the Sun AU. Non-canon, though the sentiments certainly are.
> 
> Anonymous asked:
> 
> i keep seeing commentary on the dai li (and being fucked) but i have to admit, i don’t quite remember picking that up? could you explain the dai li in tts?

**A Step-By-Step Guide to Fucking Your Dai Li**

_By Shenji, Dai Li Apprentice, expert fuckee_

1) Spend untold years brainwashing your fellow citizens such that your group name is synonymous with repression and terror. Are your Dai Li sufficiently fucked? No? Proceed to step 2.

2) Kidnap the favorite pet of a twelve-year-old immortal world-spirit. Have twelve-year-old and his underaged friends break into your secret headquarters and rampage for shits and giggles because someone already let the bison go. Are your Dai Li maximally fucked? Haha if course not. Proceed to step 3.

3) Small children rat you out to a man-child with a bear and destabilize your leadership. Are your Dai Li getting a little sore? They can take more. Step 4!

4) Bow to the nice Fire Princess, it’s not like the bear is going to protect you. This part goes great, the city is yours again, and you always looked good in red! Umm, but she still wants you to wear green? And come with her to the Fire Nation. Uhh, guys? Feeling a little fucked here. Why do I have a bad feeling there’s a step–

5! Toss a Fire Prince in jail and wall him in, s'okay, it’s what the Fire Lord wanted and that guy is NOT somebody to fuck around with, deep breaths, just hide behind your princess and wait for the nice man to go conquer the rest of your country. It will all be over soon, and sure this country hates you and so does yours but how much more fucked can you possibly–Oma and Shu don’t answer that–

6\. Umm. So your princess just banished you. In a foreign nation. And you better believe all your clothes are still green. Ummmmm. Can we at least make money off this fucking? ‘Cause you’re pretty sure you haven’t pulled a salary since you got here and everyone’s been too terrified to ask. So you’re just going to, uh. To live in the streets for awhile. That’s great. Lots of lava tunnels around here, just need to steal enough clothes and food and money to stay alive until you can all sneak off on boats to. To. Umm. Whatever country you haven’t ticked off? The Water Tribes like outsiders, right? Fuuuuck.

7) Oh shit that kid you buried. Totally forgot about him. Guards didn’t, though, and now he’s on the throne and offering pardons, all you’ve got to do is stick yourself out far enough to get fucked–

(But it might be worth a try, guys. He could be gentle. Right? Guys? Right…?)

8) Haha nevermind, here’s Fire Lord Iroh! Who is definitely not offering pardons for the Dai Li. And is working with the twelve-year-old whose pet you kidnapped. Like, who’s idea even was that? “This bison would look great in our underwater base, and definitely won’t come back to fuck us.” Hahahahaaaaaa.

**Continue fucking Dai Li? Yes/No**

_[“No” is greyed out. This does not stop Shenji from hitting it repeatedly.]_


	3. AU Where Iroh Dies Instead of Lu Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:
> 
> What would an AU where Iroh died instead of Lu Ten look like do you think?

Lu Ten had a tragic accident on the way home from Ba Sing Se, Ozai still takes the throne, no one in court comments or is particularly surprised

Zuko has no Uncle to guide him in banishment, but I’m a firm believer he’s not a huge jerk to his crew until the Avatar shows up and he gets all hopeful-desperate, so this actually forces him to rely on them more and forge closer bonds

They get the story of the scar from the kid himself, and sooner

When Zuko brings Aang on board, the crew is like “YOU NEED TO ESCAPE, OUR PRINCE CAN’T GO HOME” and Aang is like *pauses mid-about-to-escape* wait what?

The crew is actively sabotaging Zuko’s Avatar Hunting efforts and he Can’t Understand Why, he thought they were–-not friends, princes don’t have those, but… but _loyal_. Is Azula paying them? Is Zhao?

After the Blue Spirit thing they have an Agni-damned INTERVENTION, the only thing waiting for you at home is more abuse and we don’t think you’ll survive this time, so with all due respect, this is a mutiny and you’re grounded young man

(But if he doesn’t go home then what is there for him or them, the Fire Nation is going to win soon and every year it gets harder to get supplies and crew pay and none of the other countries would even take them it’s the Fire Nation or nothing-–)

When Zuko shows up at the North Pole, he kneels before Katara and humbly (oh Agni he knows he’s practically spitting these words and she looks about ready to drown him in that teenie-tiny fish pond) he _humbly_ begs an audience with the Avatar because his father Needs To Be Stopped. Otherwise his people will never be safe. They’re… Zhao _took_ them, they’re in the fleet, and he just knows they’re going to do something stupid because Zhao maybe kind of a little blew up his ship with-him-on-it–-

Wait what. Katara is… really not sure what to make of this, but the prince is clearly choking down his pride to _beg_ her-–

And from there I could either be nice, finish out the South Pole arc with change ripples (like the crew shanking Zhao in the back and incidentally saving Yue), and from there Fade To Treason and End Story

Or I could be very Not Nice, and have Aang still go glowy

And Zuko’s crew (his friends his family) die at the hands of this overpowered child spirit

And now Zuko needs to take down the Fire Lord AND the Avatar, and boy is his bending doing fine because _he is made of pure rage_

This route would probably involve capturing Aang somewhere in the Earth Kingdom and dragging him home

So he gets one clear shot at Daddy Dearest before Ozai realizes Zuko is _not_ His Loyal Son

Zuko has one goal in life, and he is quite focused on it

Hey Ozai. Too bad the only man who knew how to redirect lightning took the secret to his grave.

“You killed him,” Aang says.

“…Yeah,” answers Fire Lord Zuko, wishing it felt like something was different now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #happy surprise outline! #I wonder if I've chosen the Nice or Mean routes on my other outlines #guess you'll find out eventually #<3 #ask #The AU Where Iroh Dies


	4. Sea Prunes (Salvage)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Salvage AU. This was a pre-write inspired by the ask below which eventually made it into Chapter 7, after a few tweaks. 
> 
> knightowl247 asked:
> 
> Zuko: discovers he likes sea prunes. Addictively so. The crew is worried, no one is safe, if you come between him and his salty prunes of heaven he WILL stab you

The Crew is grinning and _staring_ the first time they’re served, they put this giant plate in front of him and no one else has any and he _knows_ this is a trick, they did something to his food or maybe this isn’t edible at all but if he refuses it then will that be their reason for refusing him real food, so he works himself up into a proper scowl to hide whatever his _real_ reaction is going to be and he makes deliberate eye contact with the worst of the men and puts one in his mouth like he doesn’t even care, the whole thing at once not a little coward’s bite because _let’s just get this over with_ and they’re watching-–

And. And the texture is a little off, but it tastes almost exactly like umeboshi. The ones that grandmother used to make (grandmother on his mother’s side, when she still sent things to the palace for them, when Mom was still there and he and Azula weren’t just Ozai’s children–) and it’s just. It’s really good, it’s so good he might cry and he’s not going to do that in front of them but something must have shown in his face because they’re all laughing like this was a big joke and someone’s sliding the plate away, saying _It’s fine, princey, you don’t have to eat them if you don’t like them, there’s soup tonight too_ , and–-

And now they’re all staring again which is when he realizes he grabbed the plate with both hands. So.

“Get your own,” he says, and slides them all back.

…That plate was for the entire table.

“Joke’s on you, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Seal Jerky is Not Impressed when Zuko tries to slip him one #ugggh Pup smells like Awful Dead Ocean Things #Seal Jerky is sleeping with Hakoda tonight


	5. Hairstyle Treason AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stydealized asked:
> 
> M'kay, but like if they didn't shave the entirety of his head when they were tending to his scar and only the region around it (if we ignore that custom of the Fire Nation for disgrace), we could have possibly have side-shaved Zuko. (Granted he kept shaving that side over 3 years for some reason.)

There is an infinity of Zuko hair styles, each as wonderful as the last, each deserving of our humble consideration.

My personal favorite is the AU where Sokka knocks Zuko’s helmet off in episode 2, and… they have the same hairstyle. Exactly. Zuko is just standing there, rockin’ the Sokka hair. And neither of them find this in any way acceptable so both of them change-–

To the same thing. As they find out on Kyoshi, and again at the abbey, and the North Pole, and that desert town, and by the time Ba Sing Se rolls around Sokka is like, “I AM DYEING MY HAIR BRIGHT PINK, BECAUSE I AM CLEARLY A HAIRBENDER AND THIS WILL AT LEAST MAKE ZUKO EASY TO SPOT” and Katara is like “Sokka that isn’t a thing, just because you dyed your hair doesn’t mean–”

But she shuts up as they pass over the Lower Ring. All of them (minus Toph, guys why are you doing the creepy sighted-people silence again) see a head of bright pink hair standing out from the dingy browns and blacks below (UNCLE WHY WERE YOUR TEA LEAVES IN THE SHAMPOO AND DID YOU KNOW THIS WAS A SIDE EFFECT).

In this AU, the Gaang regularly bother impoverished-refugee-no-it’s-NOT-an-act!Zuko at his job, learning uncomfortable facts like how badly he really really needs their tips and Toph you are never allowed to make him dance again I think you broke him (I didn’t think he’d actually DO it, weren’t you guys always saying how much pride he has?) and Zuko just CAN’T but he needs this job, he can’t even afford to dye his hair _back_ -–

And Sokka, in an act of hairbender solidarity, treats him to a spa day that ends with them both at a fancy-pants Upper Ring hair stylist. And they are like, what is the worst possible hair cut we could get?

“Shaved with nothing but a ponytail,” Sokka suggests, “can you even picture how bad that would look?”

“And dyed blue,” Zuko says. “My asshat dad would _hate_ that.”

This is the AU were Sokka leads Zuko into rebellion, one hair style at a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #apparently my brain has thought about this WAY MORE than I'd initially realized #Hairstyle Treason AU


	6. Zuko is a Hufflepuff AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:
> 
> I want to say that I think the sorting hat would have a hard time with Zuko. He’s very hardworking and incredibly loyal yes, and I agree that does win out. But he’s also very brave, willing to do whatever he needs to achieve his goals (no matter how difficult or illegal), highly intelligent if not always the best at applying it... I don’t think the hat would consider Slytherin, but I think both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw would have been discussed before Hufflepuff won out.

Zuko’s mistake under the sorting hat was chanting _not Gryffindor not Gryffindor_ because he knew there was nothing that Father would hate worse–-

And then the hat spoke and he realized how wrong he was.

_You could have belonged to the house of ambition, Zuko. Could have surprised me with some hidden depths of intelligence, or fool hardy but fashionable bravery. Instead you’re… hard-working._

(Zuko knew from a very young age that being hard-working just meant you weren’t talented, and now his robes were stained yellow for all the world to see. All his father’s supporters to see. It wasn’t Father’s fault what happened when Zuko came home that summer, he was just trying to teach Zuko respect. Like in all other areas, Zuko had no particular talent for it. But after he got out of St Mungo’s, after he went back to his second year with the scar on his face, he resolved that he could at least be hard-working about it. He would learn to respect his Father because trying hard was all he had left to give.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Zuko is a Hufflepuff #Ozai is unamused
> 
> Hufflepuff Zuko AU now has a story: [The Cunning, The Witty, The Kind, The Protective, and The Loyal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21801772/chapters/52024750) by NighttimeWarrior7


	7. Boph, Brother of Toph (Zuko Has a Sense of Humor AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> emma-d-klutz  
> guys we have jokes about Aang fucking with Sokka and Sokka fucking with Zuko and all the way round but
> 
> here me out
> 
> the day Zuko finally shares the gaang’s sense of humor  
> is a day of reckoning
> 
> it is a figurative day of black sun when that guy - delivery as still as dry as the day he said, “That’s rough, buddy,” - commits himself to a running gag. I’m telling you, once he learns to have a sense of humor, he will be too good at it - too powerful. No one will be able to tell if he’s joking when he says the fish in the Palace’s pond secret and oil quiet poisonous to mammals, humans included, and have been historically used in several assassinations, as the effects won’t take hold until three months after contact and then do not result in fatality until up to six months - the pond holds the fish for the symbolism and history, of course. Of course. 
> 
> my dudes. No One Would Know. 
> 
> It would take a full year before the gaang caught on that Zuko gained a sense of humor at all
> 
> Even then, Toph only figured it out because she sensed his body’s silent laughter
> 
> devilangel657  
> @muffinlance

Toph finds out, and she doubles down _hard_.

Those poison fish? She falls into the fish pond. By the three month mark she’s consulting Zuko on sauce colors, shoving some in her mouth, and going out to dramatically cough blood in front of the Gaang. Katara can’t find anything wrong with her, and it’s okay Sweetness you tried your best, it’s just… It’s her time. Don’t cry for her, she… she’ll find the strength to arm-punch you, somehow. Go live, don’t mope around, she doesn’t want them remembering her like this.

This is all Zuko’s fault he blames himself completely, he insists she remain in the Fire Nation for hospice since only Fire Nation physicians know the best way to ease her suffering.

At six months the Gaang is called back to the Fire Nation for the funeral. Fire Lord Zuko is presiding, he… he can’t leave this to some sage who didn’t even _know_ her. She wanted to be cremated, and the body is wrapped in the finest shrouds, the Fire Nation equivalent of a closed-casket funeral (it… it wasn’t good at the end, guys. You don’t want to see.)

They get about ten minutes into this heart-breaking ceremony, and then a familiar voice shouts “SORRY I’M LATE” and in stomps Toph. Wearing an Appa-mustache.

“I’m not Toph,” Toph says, “I’m Toph’s illegitimate half-brother Boph (my father was the Boulder. Mom talks about me _even less_ than she ever talked about Toph.)”

“Toph, this _isn’t funny–-”_

“C-could we please proceed?” Zuko, fucking _teary-eyed Zuko_ says, “Boph, I’m so glad you got my letter, I know how close you were to your sister in her final months.”

And ~~Toph~~ Boph and Zuko. Are fully committed to this act. For the next fucking year.

And HOW DID THEY GET THE BOULDER IN ON THIS.

(THE BOULDER. APPRECIATES FREE STATE-FUNDED TRIPS TO FOREIGN NATIONS. THE BOULDER LOVES HIS ILLEGITIMATE LOVE CHILD LIKE HE LOVES WEEKENDS AT EMBER ISLAND. THE BOULDER FINDS THE EMBER ISLAND PLAYERS TO BE A MULTIFACETED GROUP PERFORMING DEEP WORKS OF ART THAT COMMENT UPON SOCIETY AND THE ABSURDITY OF OUR EXISTENCE. THE BOULDER IS CALLING THE FIRE LORD’S BLUFF, THE FIRE LORD ENJOYS OUR THEATRE DEBATES TOO MUCH TO BANISH THE BOULDER FOR GIVING A STANDING OVATION AT LOVE AMONGST THE DRAGONS.)

 ~~Boph~~ Toph _doesn’t even bother wearing the mustache_ half the time. When called on it, she pulls it out of her pocket and puts it back on.

And Zuko. Never. Cracks.

…The monster has two heads, and it is of their own making.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Zuko has a sense of humor #you have been warned


	8. Time Travel AU: Zuko Adopts Zuko

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> presumenothing asked:
> 
> I see your Zuko adoption bingo, and raise you: Zuko getting adopted by an older version of himself via time travel. (Iroh shrugs, and adopts them both.)

Iroh is quietly pleased every time Zuko slaps Zuko upside the head.

“We are NOT ramming the ship into that village, dumbass. Now did you buy the hog-monkeys at the last port like I told you to?”

“DON’T CALL ME DUMBASS and yes I did they’re AWFUL except for Cinnamon. We’re… We’re not eating them, are we?”

“OF COURSE WE’RE NOT EATING CINNAMON DUMBASS and we’re Avatar Hunting.”

“CALL ME THAT ONE MORE TIME and you can’t seriously expect me to believe that hog-monkeys-–”

“HEY DUMBASS IF YOU DON’T LIKE BEING A DUMBASS MAYBE STOP TRYING SO HARD TO BE A DUMBASS and which of us _found_ the Avatar, huh? Trust me: hog-monkeys.”

(Lt Jee is rapidly growing fond of this new Zuko, as well.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #releasing wild hog-monkeys into the Water Tribe village #is everything Zuko and Zuko ever wanted #Avatar located: check #Sokka finally gotten back for releasing that boarquipine into the throne room: check #time travel is beautiful #and best used for petty revenge #now: DUMBASS SET COURSE FOR THE NORTH POLE YOUR AVATAR NEEDS TO SAVE A FISH


	9. Mother Hama AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> A concept: Zuko adopted by Hama. Does she think he's a lost waterbender for some reason? Did he lose his memory? Is she raising him to destroy the Fire Nation from the inside? The possibilities are endless

Guys guys LOOK! We found a more abusive parent than Ozai! I am _impressed_ , Nonnie.

Prince Zuko first begins Blue Spiriting out of the palace shortly after his mother disappears. Because she’s out there, right? And she said to remember who he is but how can he do that when Father and Azula and all his tutors are, they’re–

Hama meets the Prince in the streets of the capital. She came to stare at the palace, at this monument to hubris. She won’t stay here; the Home Guard are too numerous, the place too mapped. She needs somewhere quaint and quiet, where good little Fire Nation boys and girls can disappear on their way from here to there. An inn, perhaps. She’ll be just as hospitable to them as they were to her people.

She does not expect the little boy playing at masks to slip off the roof in front of her. Was the dear pet watching her? Hmm?

It’s clear at a glance that those robes he just sullied are the finest silk. And when she coos and frets like the harmless old woman she appears, the face under that mask is Ozai’s own. Only a little younger, a little more tear-streaked, a little less wary of a kindly old woman.

She likes seeing tears on that man’s face.

“Come with me, dearie. We’ll find your mother.”

“…Mother is missing.”

The little fire snake hasn’t learned to hold his tongue, or speak the lies the rest of his people are so fluent in. She wonders how long it takes them to pick up that second language.

(Surrender and you won’t be harmed-–)

(You’re only making it harder for yourself-–)

(Stop please I swear I won’t tell, I have children at home, _please–-)_

Hama never had the chance to have children. She was too young, and now she’s too old. The Fire Lord’s _reparations_ start here.

“Little Fire, your mother isn’t _missing_. She sent me to find you.” She stretches out her hand and the boy almost takes it. Hesitates. She tries to remember how she used to smile at children, before every child around was a spark in need of snuffing. “You didn’t think she’d just _leave_ you, did you?”

The boy takes her hand. His name is Zuko, she learns later, from the missing posters. The Fire Lord searches for him.

The Fire Lord does not search very hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Hama Raises Zuko AU #this is like the nightmare opposite of Hakuddles


	10. Mother Hama AU, Parts 2 & 3 & links to more

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 was written by scrawling-stardumb, click [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21777031).
> 
> Part 3 prompt:
> 
> @liveandletrain replied to your ask post
> 
> This is wonderfully horrific and I’m now desperate to know how this changes Hama’s interactions with the GAang and also Zuko’s perception of Katara

The firebender they rescued-–the long-lost Fire _Prince_ , the yellowed posters they’d found in Hama’s attic tell them–-doesn’t always believe he’s rescued. When he wakes up from dreams and finds only one of them on watch, when it’s been too many days since they told him stories of his Uncle, when the moon is full and Katara is restless and his eyes track her every movement, waiting for her to turn into the monster he’s believed her to be ever since he found out what she is. She tries to show him _who_ she is, instead; tries to smile when he quietly joins her in preparing a meal or cleaning up after, tries to be patient when he watches her waterbend like he’s cataloging every weakness, tries to let it be the others who catch him and soothe him and guide him gently back when he runs.

Toph says he believes he’s safe with them, most of the time. He believes they know his Uncle and they’re bringing him to him. He just… forgets.

He forgets for the first time the afternoon that Toph settles on his nickname. “Sparky,” she says, and tells them later his heart did something weird and she didn’t know what it meant yet. Not then. He disappeared later that day, when they landed for a rest break and he asked permission to go do his business somewhere private. Katara smiled, of course he could, and didn’t realize how long he’d been gone.

Sokka had been counting the minutes, though. Dragged him back, with yelping and cursing and new bruises on both of them. And the Prince huddled next to Appa’s side as they reminded him he was safe.

“Why’d you freak out, Sparky?” Toph asks, when he’s calmly stroking Momo, when he believes them again.

“…She called me Little Fire.”

Toph stops trying to nickname him. It takes him a few days to relearn how to respond to “Zuko”.

Sokka teaches him how to use that sword he’d been hiding, the one he’d pulled out of the hollow of a tree like he’s spent years hiding things where he thought they might be useful, the one he used with the cold triumph that something finally _was_ –

(They’d had to take him with them, after. Hama was–-was never going to hurt anyone again, but the villagers knew the witch had a son, the obedient boy who trailed her on market days and never spoke to anyone. They needed someone to blame, to hurt, and there was no way that boy hadn’t known what his mother was doing–-

“Why didn’t you defend yourself?” Katara asked later, gently, as she healed the cuts where the rocks had hit before they’d swooped in on Appa to save him. Sokka had said he’d be fine with his own people, but she and Aang had just wanted to check.

“They’re _my people_. I couldn’t–-couldn’t protect them. I couldn’t _hurt_ them.”

They try not to let him know what else they’re planning at the capital. Rescuing his Uncle, yes, but it will be the Day of Black Sun and there’s more to it than that.

Katara thinks he knows. He’s not as good at lying as she’d expect from Ozai’s son or Azula’s brother, not in words or eyes, but he’s not stupid. He reminds her of a fox-hare that’s devoted its life to escaping the hunter’s snare.)

The sword practice calms him. He believes them better, when they're teaching him how to fight.

Bending calms him, too. He starts practicing furtively, awkward little moves that remind her of when she was trying to teach herself bending. When no one stops him he grows more confident, more relaxed. He doesn’t grow _better_ , and they remember that the Lost Prince disappeared as a child. These are a child’s broken memories of a dance he once knew.

Aang sits with him in the mornings, and passes on Jeong-Jeong’s breathing lessons. The Prince is grateful. He believes them almost completely, when it’s quiet and the sun is newly risen and the Avatar is trying to remember the handful of firebending he learned a half a year ago.

“Your Uncle promised to teach me more,” Aang says. “He’s amazing! I’m sure he’ll teach you, too.”

“I… don’t really remember him,” the Prince confesses, and Katara knows he wouldn’t want her or Sokka or anyone in Water Tribe blue to hear this, but she’s still lying in her sleeping bag and he doesn’t know she’s awake. “He was… nice, I think? But always away at war. He sent me a knife once.”

Katara wonders if it’s the knife Azula uses when she’s too close for comfort, when she feels like toying with her prey.

The Prince forgets again the night before the invasion, when it’s Katara’s turn at watch and she _can’t_ let him run, Aang _finally_ went to sleep and there’s only a few hours left and they can’t afford to waste it chasing him down. He looks back, he sees her, and his _eyes_ –-

She doesn’t realize it’s a full moon until she yells _stop_ and he _does_ , his body rigid in front of her grasping hands.

She wonders if she can feel his terror through his blood, or if she’s only imagining it.

She lets him go, she apologizes, she helps rub feeling back into his arms and legs while he sits panting on the ground, trying to remember his breath control lessons from Aang. They’re _rescuing_ him, remember? They’re taking him to his Uncle. They’ll be there soon.

“She promised that a lot, too,” he says, like he can’t keep the words in. “‘We’ll find her soon.’”

Katara doesn’t know who 'her’ is, but she touches her necklace with a terrible suspicion for why a young Prince would follow a strange woman away from the palace. They… haven’t heard anything about a Fire Lady, have they?

Zuko comes quietly back to camp. He pretends to sleep. She pretends he didn’t look at her the same way he’d looked at Hama, when she’d brought her new student and her son out under the moonlight for a _demonstration_. He’d come along quietly then, too.

The Prince escapes on the Day of Black Sun. The warriors left with the ships have too many other duties to keep a proper eye on him; he has too much terror of Water Tribe blue to stay. The Gaang doesn’t see him again until the Western Air Temple.

His sister has given him his knife back, Katara notices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's now contenders for Part 4! Note that all of these are separate timelines, since they were posted by three different people pretty much simultaneously. Can I take a moment to appreciate all of you as fantastic creative human beings? And how much y'all love protective!Azula. <3
> 
> How Zuzu got his knife back, a kind wonderful amazing Azula POV: ["Never Give Up Without A Fight"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21779524/chapters/51967615) by cameron_writes_nonsense. Continued in ["It's a Part Five *offbeat clapping*"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21783676).
> 
> A longer one, featuring a reunion with the whole family that goes as good-bad as you could possibly imagine: [I'll Keep You Safe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22059796) by Shadowmightwrite17
> 
> A short sweet Iroh-and-Zuko by [wontonnerd](https://wontonnerd.tumblr.com/): [click and scroll to last post](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/189646659981/a-concept-zuko-adopted-by-hama-does-she-think).
> 
> A snippet set mid-captivity, by [good-eviening](https://good-eviening.tumblr.com): [clickie](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/189654943356/sweet-dreams-little-fire).
> 
> A big ol' one-shot AU of its own: [my blood runs thin (five years)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21811705) by Idhren15


	11. Azula is a Hufflepuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anarchist-pin-curls asked:
> 
> hey, so. on the subject of hufflepuff!zuko, i raise you: azula is also a hufflepuff. crazy loyal (and expects that loyalty returned in kind), hard-working (you don't get to be that good at firebending with just natural talent), and extremely diplomatic when she wants to be. not to mention it's unclear if she has any opinions of her own on the war, just that she's being loyal to her father. ("put me in slytherin or i will set you on fire" "you need a supportive environment hUFFLEPUFF" "fuck you")

Azula was twelve years and twenty-three days old when she learned two things: she could never go home again, and that ancient magical artifacts were irritatingly immune to fire.

The Sorting Hat was several centuries plus fifty-seven days old when it learned this exemption did not extend to fiendfyre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #being a proper Hufflepuff #Azula gladly applied all her hard work to making sure her house mates knew all the BEST spells #incidents of Hufflepuff bullying drastically reduced thereafter #Slytherin: no longer the most terrifying house #just the place where all the posers go#honey badgers after all #have ZERO fucks to give #maybe Zuzu was on to something here #Zuko is a Hufflepuff #Azula is a Hufflepuff #I ship Hufflepuffs/Fiendfyre


	12. Giant Spiders and Unicorns: Also Hufflepuffs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anarchist-pin-curls  
> In a very Azula fashion, no one but Zuko can prove it was her, even though everyone knows it was. Professor Zhao (Slytherin’s head of house) takes great joy in contacting Father anyway.
> 
> Unforeseen consequences of this decision involve another one for the Zuko (and Azula) adoption bingo: aragog the giant spider

“So you were crying in the forest, Zuzu–”

“I WASN’T CRYING”

“–the _Forbidden_ Forest–”

“HAHN THREW MY REMEMBRALL IN THERE–”

“Yes yes, a tragic loss I’m sure. But that doesn’t explain _this_.”

*expansive hand gesture to include the giant spider Zuko rode up the side of the castle, and which is still peering in through the open window of the Hufflepuff common room, two legs wedged too far inside for anyone’s comfort*

“The teachers _know_ when someone comes through the front doors after curfew and I didn’t want to get in trouble–”

“Zuzu. Do we need to discuss what ‘explanation’ means?”

*Zuko continues to explain _why_ he rode the world’s largest arcomantula, and why it was objectively the best choice at the time, not _how this came to be_ *

*other Hufflepuffs continue to press themselves into the non-window-adjacent edges of the room*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #did you at least get back your remembrall #no the unicorns wouldn't give it back #...the what#on an unrelated note do you think unicorns are like cows and they can only go up stairs but not down? #Zuzu what did you do #*insert high pitched sound of Ty Lee squealing* #nevermind I don't want to know #Zuko is a Hufflepuff #Azula is a Hufflepuff #Giant Spiders and Unicorns: also Hufflepuffs


	13. Pirate Zuko AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> Zuko adopted by the pirates.

He still uses the good rope on Katara. And apologizes a lot when dragging her back in the ship, also she should please watch her step, there’s a loose board there–

And he seems intensely uncomfortable with leaving her alone, but it doesn’t seem like he’s afraid of _her_. And the other pirates who saunter by her cell expecting to find her alone and find his _glare_ instead are weirdly sheepish in a way that–let’s be real here–she was not expecting from potential rapists. And she feels a little bit better about being alone with this person who looks terrifying, and fights so well, but is very deliberately staying on his side of the room. He’s not much older than she is, is he?

“What’s going to happen to me?” she asks.

“…I don’t know.”

This is the first real conversation they’ve ever had, and already she knows he’s a terrible liar.

“Will you help me?” she asks.

“I can’t. They saved my life, I can’t–can’t _turn_ on them. I’m _loyal_.”

“Are they worth your loyalty?”

He looks at her like this is a question he’s never in his life thought to ask.

It’s a week later that they finally find their way back to Sokka and Aang. Sokka is _less than pleased_ when his SNEAK ATTACK against this foul pirate following his sister is intercepted by a water whip, and a damsel that is _not_ in distress, thank you.

“Hey,” the former pirate says, rubbing the back of his neck. “…Li, here?”

“So we’re traveling with a pirate now,” Sokka says. “That’s a thing that’s happening. Why don’t we just pick up a crate of scorpion-vipers while we’re at it, or–or a firebender!”

“Uh,” Li says. Then, very quickly when they’ve all turned to look at him, “…nothing.”

He’s still a terrible liar. Katara hopes he’ll feel safe enough to tell them the truth, one day. For now, she makes sure Sokka doesn’t boomerang him as he makes his way over to Appa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #and then Appa licks him #and they find out what it looks like when a pirate falls in disgust-love #Pirate Zuko AU


	14. Yuyan Adopt Zuko AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> have we had zuko adopted by the yu yan archers yet?

The kid is scruffy and underfed, needs a change for those bandages on his face and probably a doctor for whatever’s oozing underneath, and he almost managed to steal their dry rations. Not all of them, or even as much as a fever-weakened thirteen year old could carry. Just enough for a meal or two. How much do kids that age eat? Probably it should be more than that.

 _We are not keeping him_ , their squad commander signs. _Or feeding every half-blooded war refugee we see. Take the food and kick him out. How did he get this close?_

 _Didn’t hear him_ , someone signs.

 _Or see him_ , another adds.

There is a silence uninterrupted by hand-signaling, but very interrupted by the growling child still trying to work the arrows out of his sleeve so he can _not_ be pinned to a tree. He could just rip the fabric and go. The shirt certainly looks like it’s seen worse. That might be the point, though: he probably doesn’t have another.

 _Just one meal?_ one of them wheedles. _We could call it an interrogation._

 _No_ , the squad commander says, via pinching the bridge of her nose to ward off a headache. It’s not an official sign, but this does not stop it from being perfectly understandable.

“I can see you talking about me!” the kid growls. And hunches his shoulders when they turn to stare. He stops only when his shirt sleeve makes an ominous ripping noise. “I know you’re Yuyan and you have awesome secret hand signs and you’re the best archers there are and you’re _talking about me_. Are you going to shoot me or let me go?”

This is a baffling mix of very angry compliments that does not improve when he scowls and adds: “If you let me go I’m taking the food,” like that’s a choice he gets to make.

 _One meal_ , the squad commander conveys, with another elegant headache-pinch.

Two weeks later Usagi Squad returns to Pohuai Stronghold.

One week after that Commander Shinu performs a surprise barracks inspection. He’s expecting to find a lizard-dog puppy or whatever other pet the troops have snuck in this time and have been stealing extra rations for.

…A lizard-dog puppy would have at least been half-tamed. And would possibly snarl at him less.

He closes his eyes, because he doesn’t need to see their excuses. “He leaves in the morning.”

They do indeed put the child outside the gates in the morning.

He finds his way back inside in time for dinner.

As Prince Zuko had been declared deceased nearly a year ago, Pohuai’s newest, smallest security consultant is never in any way linked to him.

Until the Avatar shows up, but that’s another story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Yuyan Raise Zuko #Commander Shinu adamantly does not #you are house breaking this one on your own #and PLEASE teach him to stop growling at me #no do NOT teach him all our secret hand signs #...it's too late isn't it #ugggh worst elite archers ever #GET THAT BOW AWAY FROM HIM BEFORE HE SHOTS OUT HIS EYE #Shinu (Very Actively) Does Not Parent Zuko (But Can't Trust His Archers Alone With A Child For Five Minutes)
> 
> Yuyan Zuko has spawned some offshoot fics, yay!
> 
> [Anchor Point](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21982333) by 00AwkwardPenguin00
> 
> [Zuko Is Morally Against Capturing Avatars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21929884) by Blue_Rive


	15. Chaos Avatar Zuko

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post round-up 'cause I was forgetting to post these as they came along. Prompts in italics, my replies in regular text. Awesome links to awesome folks who've awesome-written in variations of this AU at the bottom. <3
> 
> Fanart up here! (Incomplete list because I suck at updating, more on Tumblr.)
> 
> [Vaatu and Zuko](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/189839795641/theres-no-going-home-i-fell-in-love-with), by [theres-no-going-home](https://theres-no-going-home.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [The Dragon of the West and Vaatu](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/189897421991/this-is-so-good-its-unfortunate-how-rare-it) by [scrawling-stardumb](https://scrawling-stardumb.tumblr.com/)

**_dragon-seraph-deactivated201912_ ** _asked:_

_Here's an Avatar Zuko AU if you're interested. Assuming you're not to swamped. Anyway, 10 year old Zuko accidentally Omashus Vaatu out of his prison via bonding/symbiosis and becomes an Avatar that way. I've got more ideas for that if you want to hear them._

Okay see I actually love this because I could do a redemption arc for Vaatu too. Except not to make either of them goodies, but so that they’re the other half of Aang’s _balance_.

Chaos Avatar Zuko would be a _natural_. Sometimes the world needs to burn, and he is there for your destructively healing needs~

(This has officially come closet to being an Avatar Zuko AU I could run with. Gonna keep this idea percolating and see what comes out~)

#yoink #Avatar Zuko

%%%

_**catflowerqueen** asked:_

_Zuko being the first chaos avatar actually has some nice parallels, since it means that the first avatar of both types mastered fire as their first element._

…And now I’m picturing Zuko’s candidates for teaching him airbending. And him legit walking up to Aang’s group–

And past them, to Appa.

*deep bow* Sifu Bison, I humbly request that you take on this lowly apprentice–

Sokka: I cannot tell if he’s actually being respectful to Appa or if he’s just fucking with us. Or both? I am starting to think both.

Aang: *inarticulate noises*

Toph: *realizes she’s on the wrong Team Avatar*

#Sifu Bison licks new apprentice #Avatar Zuko pointedly commences learning from Appa while somehow pretending none of the rest of them are there #I'M NOT TEACHING YOU WATERBENDING NEXT shouts Katara #somewhere the Moon starts laughing #and Toph is already planning badgermole play-dates

%%%

_**Anonymous** asked:_

_So is this Chaos Avatar Zuko is going to be a Vaatu adopts Zuko?_

Look, he isn’t adopting the human larva, he didn’t even know what the word adoption _meant_ until five seconds ago. But actions taken by the larva’s genetic donor (oh do not even get Vaatu started on the filth that is human procreation, can’t they form children from the endless space of concepts like _civilized_ creatures?), ahem, Fire Lord Genetic Donor is actively weakening his vessel in flesh and spirit, even when not present, and Vaatu refuses to allow this to continue. Fire Larva, you WILL feel better this instant, Vaatu COMMANDS you.

bb!Zuko hiding in a garden until his sniffling won’t be a disgrace to Father: …That isn’t how feelings work, Voice, but thank you for trying. I’ll practice extra hard at bending tomorrow, and the next day, and one day Father will be proud–

Ancient Spirit of Chaos and Destruction: One day this place will burn to the ground.

Zuko: …What?

Vaatu: Nothing, Larva. Keep generating salt water.

#you're funny Voice #that's because the world is a joke waiting for it's punchline Larva

%%%

_**darkeneddawning** asked:_

_About chaos avatar Zuko-- does he get an animal guide/companion, like the original avatar does? Maybe he gets Druk, but my first thought was Zuko traveling the world with his faithful turtleduck by his side_

I really want the give him a turtleduck a la Nyanko Sensei from Natsume’s Book of Friends. Like it’s a normal slightly snarky turtleduck (so, a normal turtleduck) but then when he’s in trouble it’s actually HOLY SHIT A SUPER-STRONG SPIRIT THAT WAS JUST CRAMMING ITSELF INTO A TINY TURTLEDUCK FORM FOR THE LOLZ. And Zuko is like, “Chaos Avatar. How were you not expecting this?”

But actually it was just a regular turtleduck and a spirit possessed it literally just that one time but now the Gaang live in terror of offending a perfectly normal turtleduck. And whenever Zuko is about to do something extra stupid he shows up and is like, “Watch my duck”, and just leaves. And they are sweat-dropping trying to pamper this duck until he comes back, and sometimes mid-fight-with-him, and oh god what if they hit him too hard that time and the duck stops _pretending_ –

Toph joins the Gaang and they try to explain the terror of the turtleduck to her. THE TURTLEDUCK, TOPH.

This is literally a regular turtleduck, guys.

…She does not understand, she puts them all in peril…

#oh she understands all right #and arm punches Avatar Sparky #who is alarmed by this casual physical contact who DOES that with the Actual Physical Incarnation Of Darkness #the turtleduck is just a turtleduck Sparky #and you are just my new punching bag

%%%

_**Anonymous** asked:_

_I’m trying to picture what Chaos Avatar Zuko would look like from an outsider perspective before anyone figures out exactly what that is and my mind just keeps jumping to like Poltergeist or Paranormal Activity. Like the Fire Sages attempting an exorcism at some point because obviously this is the world of a mega spirit curse and an ancient spirit who promises destruction is not an acceptable imaginary friend._

There are two starting points I’m deciding from for this story: pre-banishment or post. Currently leaning towards pre-banishment because they are legit going to think he’s straight up possessed by the worst evil spirit on record and they _won’t be wrong_.

Uncle, having tea party with his nephew and only paying half-attention because he’s still on Grief Mode: Ah, and what is your imaginary friend’s name?

bb!Zuko: HE’S NOT IMAGINARY! His name is Vaatu and he says we’ll be great together and that he’ll never leave me, and he’s always there even in the middle of the night when I–he just. He’s always there. He’s my best friend and he’s _real_.

Uncle: Mmmhmm, mmmhmm, mmm–*chokes on tea as his brain catches up to “Vaatu”* I… see. Does your friend tell you to do things, sometimes?

bb!Zuko, so excited that Uncle believes him because only Azula ever has and _she_ pretends _not to:_ All the time! He has really good advice, like how to make my fire bigger and how to make Captain Zhao stay away from me, you should have _seen_ his face–

And so begins Uncle’s frantic research and attempts to exorcise his nephew.

Ozai is more than happy to listen to his brother’s solemn counsel that something with Zuko is not right. He has a much more direct way of solving the problem, however.

All he does, he does for the Fire Nation. You understand, right son? Kneel right here and Father will help you–

#Azula learns that getting caught with voices in your head means Father trying to burn you alive #lesson noted

%%%

_**Anonymous** asked:_

_i sure hope iroh doesn't think to play along with the evil spirit, and pretend to be fooled by it so he can get close enough to strike. im sure iroh in his long history of treachery wouldnt consider such a deceptive and risky course of action. (just imagine the relief on zuko's face when he thinks iroh finally, finally believes him) (I sure hope this doesn't give him (more) trust issues)_

It would definitely be awful if Zuko thought for one moment that he was safe, and he could go home and appreciate simple things like pai sho and tea, and his Uncle actually saw _him_ not some evil creature that… that…

…Wow it’s getting hard to think. But he’s safe, for the first time in years, maybe when he’s safe he gets sleepy? Like being wrapped up in a warm blanket, but the blanket is his Uncle’s reassurances that everything will be all right…

(Or maybe it’s the drugged tea and he’s about to wake up in prison, manacled hand and foot, and it’s never water the guards bring him it’s always tea, awful tea, tea that tastes like foggy thinking and he doesn’t want this anymore and he doesn’t know if Uncle has actually been coming to visit him or if he’s just dreaming that and he doesn’t know which would be worse–)

(The Gold Spirit is real. She breaks him out, and he doesn’t remember how but they’re somewhere else now, and he should feel safe with her watching over him and a half-grown dragon curled warmly around him and his thoughts straightening out from their tangle-fog into something he can use again, but)

(But)

(He thinks she’d understand if he doesn’t ever feel safe again.)

#*hugs a dragon* #*much safer than hugging his sister even if he'd like to do that too* #thanks Lala #I can't believe you drank the fucking tea Dum-Dum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awesome fics and ficlets of awesomeness playing with variations of this AU! I am definitely planning on writing this one myself, but as with all my AUs, feel free to play around in it if the inspiration strikes you. Just give me a link back in the author's notes so we can drive traffic to each other. <3
> 
> [Consider The Wildflowers by AvocadoLove](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22050730/chapters/52625371)
> 
> [Hello Darkness by Flameo_Hotman](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22064629/chapters/52657519)
> 
> [The Sound of Grief by Bombus -Pascuorum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22066699)


	16. Everyone Wants More Mother Hama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> i imagine in the hama raises zuko au instead of hama it was zuko who stumble upon the gaang in the forest in one of hama hunts night were upon seeing them tries to warn them but hama beat to him and introduces herself to them.

Zuko tried to warn travelers. Used to try. But she always knew, and she always always took those ones away, down into the caves. She’d make Zuko bring them water so he would see exactly whose fault it was they were suffering and scared and pleading and cursing and going so so silent when he couldn’t help them he could never help them-–

The ones he didn’t warn… Sometimes they ended up in the caves, anyway. But not always. Sometimes she would smile and wave them off down the road to their next destination, and afterwards she would let him eat the good food even when no one else was even around to see, and ruffle his hair so it felt nice instead of making it hurt.

He knew she was toying with him. Training him like a lizard-dog. And he hated being obedient, he hated it, but he hated feeling like it was his fault even worse.

(And he liked to be touched, without it hurting.)

By the time the Gaang shows up, Little Fire has learned that it’s safer for everyone if he keeps his mouth shut. By the time she finds people alone in the woods, they’re already hers to decide what to do with. The only thing he could do is get them killed for certain.

It’s not like travelers would even expect a warning from the kindly old innkeeper’s mute son.

Her boy’s a bit strange, but harmless. Don’t mind him with his ducked head and his stooped shoulders, dearies, and if he seems uncomfortable eating at the table, seems in fact like he was going to eat over on the floor in the corner until Mother Hama called him over–-well. He’s not a bright boy, very slow to learn even the simplest of lessons, but he’s her pride and joy. Her very own Prince.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Sokka is at first super paranoid that Creepy Silent Son is the one making people disappear and his mother is too blinded by love to see it #because come on #CREEPY SILENT SON #oh boy is he ever wrong #...some apologies necessary #...that's cool no need to reply to said apologies just keep being creepy and silent #ooookay everybody back on the bison let's forget this nightmare town #you'll be fine here right Little Fire? right great bye #Hama Raises Zuko #Mother Hama


	17. The Portion Sizes in Prison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:
> 
> Alright but fire benders having to eat 2 to 3 times more then the average person. The gang find that in the fire nation most food portions are massive in comparison to the rest of the world because fire benders eat a fucking lot

All right but

When Zuko first joins the Gaang they don’t know this, and he is not gonna push his luck by demanding more food from their limited supplies, so when Katara slops that tiny slightly-burnt portion into his bowl and glares he just says thank you and shuffles off to his where-they-can-see-him corner to eat

It’s not until the Boiling Rock that things click, because New Guard Sokka has to help serve out portions and he quickly realizes some of these prisoners get way more than others and he’s like, what, are these the warden’s favorites? And his fellow serving guard is like haha no, just the firebenders, we’re not monsters after all–

And he watches Zuko inhaling his prison rations like he has been starving, and it’s about three times what they were giving him back at Camp Avatar, and

Well. That’s a talk he’s going to have to have with Katara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Zuko: *...asks for seconds?* #Other Guard: haha teenage firebenders #Sokka: ...


	18. Little Scaled Salvage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> I propose a triple crossover: little scaled salvage. zuko is at approximate "can still be worn as a scarf for cuddles" size, his horn nubs are just barely starting to come in. akhlut crew wary until they find that dragon zuko is much less fighty (if just as reckless) than human zuko. winter rolls around and theyre a lil alarmed to find out that all the firebender talk about "agni gives us life" is more literal than they thought, as their scrawny lil dragon son basically starts hibernating

Oh my gosh little dragon Zuko--

He initially tries to escape by flying but can't make it far enough, because he is smol. (Ranalok and Aake just trail him in a boat until he has to land. Aake suggests wing-breaking as a future deterrent, kid doesn't even need those in human form. Ranalok says that's the Chief's call and spends the rest of the trip back with a tired shaky noodle hiding inside his coat. Later, Human Zuko insists he was just COLD, okay, that's ALL.)

Laundry involves their water heater occasionally being IN the tub, sporadic bubbles rising from the wiggly heating coil at the bottom, how long can dragons hold their breath because Panuk and Toklo are starting to discover the relevance of that question-- (Warm baths help with molting, of COURSE he has to get his head wet too, put him _back--_ )

Apologies after burning Bato include a clearly ceremonial handing over of his last molt. Bato is now holding the shed skin of a child and this is just one more thing he Does Not Know What To Do With, in the rather long list he's acquired since returning to the ship.

Human Zuko walks around with a dog in his arms and/or clinging ridiculously to his shoulder. Dragon Zuko rides Seal Jerky around the deck like an epic mount, scaly nose raised high, scruffy little mane blowing majestically in the wind. Human Zuko DOES NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS. (Seal Jerky is a happy pupper either way.)

On cold nights, Human Zuko steals blankets to his growing nest, and glares at anyone to dare mention it. The first time it was extra cold and he was a dragon, they thought they lost him again. Then Kustaa got into his own hammock-- _Wake me up if he's hypothermic when you catch him_ \--and just kind of... paused. Dragon nephew had been waiting hours for his warm cuddles. (Toklo hereafter took to piling extra blankets on his own hammock as a dragon-lure. It has not to date been effective, because Toklo is a small inefficient radiator. Acceptable heaters include, but are not limited to: Kustaa, Hakoda, Ranalok, and Aake. Bato is too boney. Aake consistently scruffs the prince and sets him on the floor. This does not stop him waking up to a warm wiggle-snake against his back. Human Zuko insists it's Aake's fault for being so warm and huge and warm.)

Dragon Zuko is trying to teach the albatross-gulls how to land properly via demonstration. Effective communication has yet to be established. (Under the roosting birbs is also acceptable place to take warm!naps. The crew would like to know how he squeezed through their cage mesh, do dragons not have _bones_?)

One of Ozai's letters includes a line about his son's skin. Hakoda originally takes this as a metaphor. This is not a metaphor. (Later, Zuko reads the letter, and does not explain to the Chief the difference between 'skin' and 'molt' that Hakoda can't be expected to know but Ozai definitely does. Little Zuko gets to the crying-hugs part of this conversation more quickly than older Zuko did.)

General Fong's letters contained occasional mentions of skin, as well. Fong has always wanted a piece of wall art to match that in the Earth King's palace, and if Ozai won't pay ransom... (NO WE ARE NOT SELLING YOU TO THE EARTH KINGDOM, says Hakoda, when he finally gets it.)

The crew was deeply unsettled to find that the Fire Lord's line were literally inhuman monsters. By the time they reach their first port, nobody had better say anything about their tiny inhuman monster, he is a BLAMELESS NOODLE.

(Aake submits to being a dragon-scarf-perch. Nobody had better say anything about that, either.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Toklo's efforts to lure the tiny prince over for scarf-snuggles or bedtime blanket heating continue #Panuk's smirking also continues #when making burn salve Kustaa curls dragon nephew up like a heating coil and puts the pot on top #indignant sulking is the perfect temperature #Scaled Salvage


	19. Little Scaled Salvage (Mitten Edition)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> oh my god akhlut crew makes little scaled zuko wear mittens when he wont stop scratching his lil horn nubs. even in this frozen waste he cannot escape the paw booties. he is wearing them when iroh first sees him on the ship which helps him believe that his nephew has been treated well. zuko is (relieved that he doesnt have to defend new hoard from uncle) INDIGNANT

Baby dragon Zuko sees the mittens coming out and has a FIT, there is now a dragon on your main mast Hakoda, congratulations.

After much practice in wiggle-snake wrestling they get them on, this is for your own good, Kustaa warned you to stop scratching. Baby noodle collapses on deck and refuses to move, how does he arm and leg, this the spot he dies because he is never moving again. (Toklo finally gets his chance at wearing the dragon-scarf because Zuko Does Not Move even when scooped up. He is the limpest sulkiest noodle.)

Uncle sees mitten-booties and tears come to his eyes, thank you for taking care of my nephew-- (Hakoda is trying not to think of how big a dragon the Dragon of the West might be as said human-shaped dragon hugs him a little too tightly.)

Zuko sees Uncle seeing mitten-booties and realizes his Uncle is a Traitor To All Things Good.

It is harder but not impossible for a mittened dragon to climb the main mast. Congratulations parental figures, he lives here now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #mittened dragon is a little nippy to fingers #one of the crew jokingly puts a comically oversized mitten over his snout too #Hakoda has flashbacks to the Earth Kingdom's proposed hospitality #and slides that right off #Scaled Salvage


	20. Herbalist!Zuko (Miyuki Adopts Zuko)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> You know that herbalist who lives in the woods near the frozen frog swamp? The one with the cat named Miyuki. Consider the idea of herbalist!zuko

Thirteen-year-old Zuko was dumped in the colonies with a days-old bandage over his face and his name stricken from the royal records.

He doesn't remember much of the Between. Between when his father--

And between when he wakes up, for real this time, feeling bone-heavy and muscle-jittery and _actually awake._ And there's a cat on his chest. Not a catopus or a cat-snake or a dog-cat. Just a cat.

Oh. So he's dead and this is the spirit world.

Okay.

...Zuko goes back to sleep.

Recovery is slow and fairly ephemeral, and the old old lady that belongs to the cat is not helping to convince him that he's _not_ dead. Not when she talks whether he says anything or not, and sometimes she answers questions he hasn't asked, and sometimes she doesn't answer things he _did_ ask.

Not when she's equally unafraid of both Fire and Earth. Of the soldiers in either color that drag their comrades through her doors, and some of them are polite but some of them threaten and yell. Zuko knows he should be more scared of the ones in green and brown, they're the enemy, they'll hurt him if they know--

"Oh," an Earth soldier says, having found him hiding under the table because he wasn't quiet enough wasn't out of the way enough wasn't good enough, "I didn't know she had a... son?"

"I'm a spirit," Zuko says, with all the seriousness of his latest fever relapse.

"...Definitely her son."

The cat is simpler. Zuko's first (allowed)-out-of-bed task is learning to prepare Miyuki's food. He gets it wrong. She lets him know, with an upturned nose, and no claws at all.

He starts helping more. With other things, like dragging in the bundles of goods that people leave as payment, because the old old woman's back makes _bad_ noises when she leans over too far and she needs to let _him_ do this. Also he's reorganizing her cabinets and she can't stop him, why is the feverfew in _five different places_.

Mistress Miyuki inspects his new system. She falls asleep in the soup pot on the second shelf, which is an endorsement the old old woman can't dispute.

He starts feeling less like the world is spinning. He hasn't had a fever relapse since autumn, and it's almost the spring again. He had to stay while the snow was so deep, the old old woman couldn't leave for supplies so someone had to (had to go down to the town past Pohuai Stronghold and not panic at all the people, all the red, all the casual displays of fire to keep warm in the cold and he couldn't couldn't couldn't--

"Oh, you're the Herbalist's... apprentice? Goodness, we were starting to get worried about her. Here, you'll need more flour, and some of these, and why don't you have _mittens_ \--"

Zuko comes back with way more than he set out for, and thick mittens muzzling his fingers, and no one seemed to think it was strange when he talked or when he didn't or when his voice stopped working half-way through. This would be weird for a prince, but was cheerfully tolerated in the maybe-apprentice-maybe-son of the old old woman.)

But. But winter was done now, and all her other patients left when they got better, so he should go too.

Probably.

He would.

Once he fixed the leaky roof ("Kid," a Fire soldier said, as he lay bandaged in the sun on the porch because sun was good, even if Zuko had to drag the man's whole futon out because he wasn't supposed to walk, the old old woman had said so. "Kid, I don't know what you're doing up there, but it is not fixing a roof. Just... wait until my partner comes back, okay? I'll guilt him into helping.")

(His partner didn't know how to fix roofs either. But he did know a lot of swear words that no one had ever dared impart upon royal ears. And he knew firebending katas, and didn't notice Zuko copying him from the shadows _at all.)_

(He must have switched to the easier ones as a cool-down, that's all.)

But Zuko was _definitely leaving._ Once Sargeant Maihun stopped being an idiot, this was a place of healing and if he tried earthbending their other patients into the ground again Zuko was going to slam this door on his face and never let him or his people in again.

"Spirit," the Sargeant said, slow and patient like Zuko was stupid, "they're _firebenders_."

"So am I," Zuko scowled.

Which led to less immediate dying than Zuko probably should have expected in retrospect, but he was leaving soon anyway and he didn't know where he'd go so it wasn't like it mattered--

Miyuki curled up in his lap. Zuko sat between the recovering Fire soldiers on their sunny porch and the not-injured Earth soldiers the old old woman had smilingly bullied away from her new patients. Everyone was glaring at everyone else but Zuko's glare was the best.

"If you wake up Miyuki, I'm kicking you all out."

The cat dozed quite peacefully.

And then somehow it was winter again, and he was sitting in the front of a Pohuai supply cart as its komodo-rhino trudged through the snow.

"Thank you," Zuko said, when they got to town.

"Don't mention it. Remember, Pohuai's closer if the weather gets really bad. We can spare some supplies for you two."

And it was spring again and it was two years since Before and Miyuki spent That Day knocking everything off the counters whenever he started to think too hard, because she was definitely a spirit, possibly one of chaotic good.

Then it was winter again. The snow was late this year. And Zuko had a hard time telling red and green apart, but _bright orange_ was new.

"That's Miyuki's dinner," Zuko scowled. "And you can't just say 'my friends are sick,' what are their _symptoms?"_

Which is how he ended up chipping through the ice layer on an old laundry tub behind the greenhouse, and fishing out frozen frogs, and following an airbender up the mountain to an abandoned temple.

"What's your name? I'm Aang!"

"...Spirit."

Miyuki let him go with only a final dismissive sniff, as if terminating an adequate but ultimately replaceable servant. Which shouldn't have been prophetic, but was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #and then they discovered he was a Good Firebender #and everything went to shit #RIP Zuko's quiet life #Miyuki Adopts Zuko #Herbalist Doesn't Accidentally Kill Small Child Suddenly Living With Her #herbalist!Zuko


	21. Herbalist!Zuko v Tea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leirobles asked:
> 
> I have no idea where Iroh is during the entire Herbalist!Zuku AU but I suspect that when he catches up he will be entirely offended by their tea but smile and drink it anyway.

Spirit-- _Prince Zuko, son the Fire Lord_ , and boy is that something Sokka is still getting used to--comes back. Smelling like smoke, carrying a suspicious sack, and with a token honey-hornet sting on his hand.

"Got honey," he says, when they've all been staring long enough that he finally cued into their collective desire for an explanation. "...Now we can drink Uncle's tea," he elaborates, after a similar interval, when he realizes Explanation the First was insufficient. "It's how I got kids to drink it at the institute."

The old guy--the _Dragon of the West_ , and boy does 'getting used to this' feel like 'internalizing his screams'--smiles. And chuckles. Like he didn't personally raze, like, one-fifth of the Earth Kingdom between the coast and Ba Sing Se.

"While I'm sure our young friends will appreciate the sweetness, I encourage you all to try it without any additions. I can assure you, a friendly cup of ginseng does not require the same level of _doctoring_ as medicinal teas." He chuckles again, and, well. Points for the pun, Sokka allows.

"No. Tea is awful." Nephew raised-by-a-crazy-lady-and-a-cat says. And takes a delicious delicious honeycomb out of his bag.

"Perhaps you have never had it prepared right--"

Spirit-Zuko scowls. "I did it exactly like Miyuki said."

"Wasn't Miyuki... the cat?" Aang asks. This does not stop him from accepting a chunk of honeycomb.

Azulon's eldest is still chuckling. It's a little pained. "Perhaps your old teacher had different tastes than--"

"Uncle," Spirko (Zuit?) says, holding several months of honey-hornet labor over his tea cup, and letting it drizzle. "I've _had_ your tea."

Sokka doesn't say anything into the apocalyptic silence that follows. Having a chunk of honeycomb shoved in his mouth is a great excuse like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Zuko actually liked Miyuki's tea better #but he thinks that would be too mean to say #*makes intense eye contact while drizzling honey instead* #herbalist!zuko #Miyuki Adopts Zuko


	22. Herbalist!Zuko v Sokka's screams of FIREBENDER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> titanic-ente asked:
> 
> How accepting will the gaang be of herbalist!zuko being a firebender?

"YOU'RE A FIREBENDER!" Sokka said in an appropriately volumed voice that did not crack at all in the middle.

The firebender that Aang had causally bought into their camp while saner minds were too sick to protest looked up from the fire he'd just lit (probably as a signal to the rest of his kind). The firebender paused in fiddling with that teapot, and his bag of highly suspicious herbs. The firebender scowled.

"Do you want to have warts on your throat-flap?"

"WHAT?" Sokka continued to use his Reasonable Voice.

"If my _completely natural ability I was born with and can't help even if I'd wanted to_ is making you uncomfortable, I can leave. But you just had a swamp frog in your mouth. The frogs secrete the antivenom for the storm-gnat bites you clearly got at some point, but they also _cause_ throat-flap-warts in about thirty percent of cases. Unless you drink this tea that I'm going to make _with my firebending_."

"...You're bluffing."

The firebender shrugged. And started packing up his bag. His bag of things that included carefully labeled herb packets and bandages and a book that had plants tooled into its leather cover.

"Bye," the firebender said, in a very non-bluffing manner. "When your sister gets back, make sure to tell her the warts are only fatal if they obstruct your airflow. Otherwise, they last about a month, and just make it difficult to swallow. Tell the airbender we prefer payment in goods."

"WAIT!" Sokka did not screech.

When Katara and Aang came back with the water, the firebender thanked them, and made tea. Sokka drank the tea. Sokka did not get poisoned in a nefarious firebender plot.

He was unclear, for the entirety of their following adventures, on whether throat-flap-warts were a real thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #herbalist!Zuko #has a sense of humor that Sokka is never quite sure on #this gets worse when Toph joins #and begins to laugh uproariously when he talks #Miyuki Adopts Zuko


	23. Herbalist!Zuko "joins" the Gaang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bunny-loverxiv asked:
> 
> Is the Gaang keeping herbalist!Zuko?

“YOU CAN’T JUST KEEP ME!” the firebender and/or fire spirit (of healing?) shouted. He shouted over the sound of the wind roaring past them as Appa dodged another flaming death-boulder from another catapult.

“Not really the time,” Sokka pointed out. He was gripping his boomerang like a boomerang was an effective tool in more than 1.5% of their daily adventures. 

“It’s exactly the time! Just… just fly back over land _where there aren’t catapults_ and _put me down!”_

“Yeah,” Sokka said. “Great idea. Let’s go back to the place where the _crazy accurate archers_ are. And wasn’t that Zhao guy after you, too? Care to explain that?”

Their impromptu passenger did not care to explain, no. He cared to cross his arms and sulk so hard it raised the ambient air temperature.

Momo landed in the teenager’s lap, and melted into a puddle of warm lemur.

As Appa kept dodging catapult shots. 

Which Sokka couldn’t do anything to help with, so ultimately his state of life or death depended upon the tactical maneuvers of a bison whose general intelligence level he still wasn’t sure of, and therefore he was going to keep focusing on the nice distraction right in front of him.

“So… why do you go by ‘Spirit’?”

“Because that’s who I _am.”_

He wasn’t going to explain that one, either, was he?

“Right, okay, cool. Can spirits teach firebending? ‘Cause Aang is the Avatar–”

“He’s _what?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #How to Kidnap a Possibly Inhuman Ally #a field guide by Sokka #How To Spend The Next Year Wondering If You Remembered To Feed The Cat #a field guide by Zuko #Miyuki Adopts Zuko #herbalist!zuko


	24. Herbalist!Zuko v Sokka's Reality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:
> 
> is herbalist!zuko called himself “spirit” because he chose it as his alias/the soldiers who saw this terrified, hallucinating child calling himself a spirit and it stuck/ or did he seriously thought of himself as dead and now is a fellow spirit living in a spirit world foreign to the living (because he hasnt been anywhere else that isnt fire nation)

“Both,” Spirit said.

“That was not an ‘all of the above’-type question,” Sokka felt the desire to point out.

Across the fire, Toph was already grinning. Which was not idealToph-behavior _._

Their resident might-still-be-planning-to-run-if-they-got-close-enough-to-his-home kidnappee gave a laconic shrug, and kept doing whatever he was doing with grinding those leaves into smaller leaves in the little bowl Toph had made for him and he’d hand-fired into hardness.

“You said you’ve been to the Spirit World,” he said.

“…Yes,” Sokka said, really not liking the way Toph was picking dirt from her toes. Why did they have to pick up the only twelve year old on the continent that could convey _rising anticipation_ via _toe-dirt-grooming_?

“How do you know you came back?”

“…What?”

“Koi fish that are actually gods. The Avatar State. A traveling companion who calls himself _Spirit_. Do these sound like the world you used to live in?”

“Uh.”

The firebender gave him the most patient, sympathetic, healer-at-a-dying-man’s-bedside look. “What’s more likely: that a vengeful forest spirit kept all its victims alive and unharmed, or that it… didn’t?”

Sokka made a sound a little like one of those screaming swamp birds. If one of those was in the rapidly closing mouth of a catogator.

“Spirit,” Katara chided from her place doing things to convert vegetables into edible food. “Please stop making my brother doubt his reality.”

Spirit shrugged, and continued his leaf grinding. “He asked.”

The newest member of Team Avatar was grinning like an especially feral animal. Probably a carnivore. Did… did she have that many teeth a minute ago? Was she giving him a terrifying glimpse behind her human-skin?

“I think I’m going to like you, Spirit.”

“Doesn’t _he_ get a nickname?” Aang asked.

Spirit and Toph exchanged a slow look, unimpeded by having only one working eye between them. “Naw. His _fits_.”

Spirit continued grinding, the sound low and persistent and as changeless as the grinding of Truth on mortal minds. Toph flicked a bit of toe-dirt, which dinged off a rock unseen outside the limiting circle of their campfire. Aang played with Momo and Katara cooked and Sokka ate, and could you still be hungry in the Spirit World?

Could you?

_Could you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #you could definitely need to use the bathroom #so ... #herbalist!zuko is off in the shadows #accepting a fist bump from Toph #Miyuki Adopts Zuko


	25. Herbalist!Zuko at the Northern Water Tribe + ALL THE LINKS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy did Tumblr have fun with this yesterday. Like. I'm gonna try to link all the ficlets and fanart in the end notes, but I'm gonna straight up admit that I have probably missed some, never mind what comes in after I post this. 
> 
> Multiple prompts and replies below.

**Anonymous** asked:

what is Herdbalist Zuko's hair like?

%%%

YES. Finally, someone asking the IMPORTANT questions!

“Well I would have brought my comb. But you kidnapped me.”

“You are just not gonna let that go, are you,” Sokka said.

“Sokka,” Katara said. “Aang _did_ pull him into the saddle. While he was saying ‘no.’ And then we didn’t ever bring him back.”

“Because there is an evil fire-shooty admiral guy after us! 'Us’ including him! Which I am still waiting on an explanation for, but I will at least accept a 'thank you Team Avatar for saving me!’ ”

“Well,” Spirit said.

_“Do not–”_

“I would have brought my gratitude–”

_“–finish that.”_

“But you kidnapped me.”

He didn’t even say it accusingly. He said it while scratching the sweet spot at the base of a lemur’s tail, smiling with airy indifference, as Katara sat behind him combing out the bison-flight tangles from his ridiculously luxuriant waves of hair.

“Did you leave your dignity behind, too?” Sokka accused. “What kind of man has hair down to his butt–”

“Longer than that,” Katara reports, running her comb through just a section of that hair because they would probably both have to be standing for her to get a full swipe in.

“–and let’s another man’s little sister play hair stylist? Do you not know the danger of surrendering hair control to a little sister?”

“I can think of worse things a little sister could do.” Their demure firebender kidnappee continued to smile. Sokka would have really appreciated if he’d been a surly firebending prisoner instead.

“I’m going to give you hair loops,” Katara said. “Beads or no beads?”

“No beads!” Sokka snapped.

“Just do the opposite of whatever your brother says.”

“Beads!”

“I’m so glad you agree,” his little sister said, sickly-sweet, her smile matching the firebender’s smirk.

It was stupid how good his hair looked when Katara was done. All… loopy, and beady. And everyday on the flight north it got more and more complicated because there wasn’t much to do on the back of a bison, until there were tiny braidy loops and swirls intertwining everywhere and a loopy-beady high bun, and still _so much hair_ left to cascade down his back, and it didn’t even get sufficiently ruined when the Northern waterbenders attacked even though Sokka’s hair looked like a hare-possum had died in it.

And one of their warriors offered the guy a hand down from Appa when they got to the city. What was with _that?_

“She’s pretty,” said warrior sighed, as all that hair went swishing after Aang and Katara.

Sokka squawked.

“Sorry,” the guy said. “Your sister?”

Additional squawking ensued.

#bulky winter coat that hides general figure? #check #demurely lowering gaze and responding only in the shyest of manly-voice-obscuring whispers? #check and check #Sokka's increasing squawk frequency making him seem protective rather than about to die from surrealism-induced asphyxiation? #overly checked #and after all #the taller sister doesn't have a betrothal necklace #herbalist!zuko #got kidnapped #and WILL passive-aggressively ruin Sokka's reality because of it #Miyuki Adopts Zuko #the Herbalist #being used to long-haired cats #wouldn't dream of cutting Zuko's Canonically-Fast-Growing-Hair

%%%

 **makiruz** asked:

Oh dude! What happens with the Gang gets to the North Pole with herbalist!Zuko?

%%%

“–and _girls_ can only be _healers_!” Katara raged.

“…Can healers only be girls?” Spirit asked. Which was not what Sokka would have interrupted this particular rant to emphasize.

The answer was a murderous growl that approximated a ‘yes’.

Spirit set his hands on her shoulders. “Katara,” he said, with an intensity unlike any they’d heard before, _“hair loopy me.”_

#Yugoda sees through this in about two seconds flat #and has bets with the other healers on when Pakku and the menfolk will notice #'never' is a valid voting option #herbalist!zuko

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then we collectively decided that Spirit-Zuko was somewhere in the non-binary or trans color spectrum and put on a fashion show of fanart and ficlets. Apologies again to anyone I missed in this link round up, and if you don't know how Tumblr works, you need to scroll past my original posts to see the reblogs/additions below them. (PS: All fanart has image descriptions in the post directly below them.)
> 
> [alopexplasma and monkeebratz's ficlets re: the North's young men are collectively courting Spirit, along with casadefreewill's comic of the process](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/617008534198108160/what-is-herdbalist-zukos-hair-like)
> 
> [casadefreewill's illustration of Spirit messing with Sokka's mind](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/617008923060338688/id-color-sketch-of-spirit-zuko-destroying)
> 
> [younggayanddoingokay's inspired-by fic where Zuko is rocking long hair from Season 1, joins the Gaang in Season 2, and goes undercover as a gal](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/617009227789172736/gosh-dammit-muffin-now-i-cant-get-the-idea-of)
> 
> [beartes22's ficlet re: how do Pakku and Iroh respond to Spirit](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/616936467956105216/oh-dude-what-happens-with-the-gang-gets-to-the)
> 
> [itsthenovelteafactor's fanart of Spirit's hair loopies](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/616936682655252480/oh-dude-what-happens-with-the-gang-gets-to-the)
> 
> [raven-shmaven's fanart of Spirit's non-binary outfits across the nations, including a family portrait of Spirit, the Herbalist, and Miyuki](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/616952244503511040/hear-me-out-nonbinary-herbalist-zuko)
> 
> [vera-simik's fanart of Spirit's Northern hair style](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/616952684371640320/oh-dude-what-happens-with-the-gang-gets-to-the)
> 
> [crayuu's fanart of an awesome braid-crown hair style](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/616954634451501056/oh-dude-what-happens-with-the-gang-gets-to-the)
> 
> [titanic-ente's fanart of Spirit in Ba Sing Se noblewoman attire](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/616956671133171712/what-is-herdbalist-zukos-hair-like)
> 
> [raven-shmaven's fanart comic of Sokka walking in on girl's night](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/616974707800096768/what-is-herdbalist-zukos-hair-like)
> 
> And just for completeness' sake, a link to the [herbalist!Zuko tag on my Tumblr](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/tagged/herbalist%21zuko), where all this lives.


	26. Herbalist!Zuko and the Kyoshi Warriors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:
> 
> K but like. The kyoshi warriors meeting spirit/zuko, and they’re all just doing each other’s hair and trading tips on incapacitating people with, like, a pinecone or any other random things that one would not assume you could make deadly, and the warriors teach spirit how they do their makeup and how to do it on their scar if they ever want to put anything over it and spirit patches them up and akdjjfjsd I’m sorry I love this au so much thank you for making it a thing

“We could… you know,” Suki said, gesturing vaguely. “We’re doing makeup already.”

“I know,” Spirit said, trying their hand at applying the Kyoshi Islander’s lipstick the way they’d been shown. “But I like the scar.”

And there was that familiar silence, of people being awkward on their behalf. Spirit pressed their lips together, evening out the red, and evaluated the results in the hand mirror another warrior had let them borrow.

“I got it trying to save lives,” they said.

“Oh,” one of the warriors started in, like people always started in.

“It didn’t work.” They handed the mirror back, and smiled. “I don’t want to hide it. How about we have some fun with it, instead? And maybe afterwards you can show me how those fans of yours work.”

“Do you have any experience with weapons?” Suki asked, letting the topic shift.

“Used to. Haven’t touched the dao in years, though.”

“Dual dao?” Suki asked. And oh, she _liked_ the way Spirit smirked.

Which was how Spirit ended up going through the Serpent’s Pass with a spare set of bladed fans, and fire lilies painted in cascading blooms over their left eye. A complement, not a cover up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #and then the actual serpent showed up #this makeup was NOT waterproof #and these fans were not long distance weapons #YOU'RE A FIREBENDER? Suki squawked #in a manner Sokka found extremely validating #herbalist!zuko #miyuki adopts zuko
> 
> MOAR LINKS:
> 
> [sansthepacifist-art and quatribobo's beautiful Kyoshi!Spirit fanart](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/617200901868879872/k-but-like-the-kyoshi-warriors-meeting)
> 
> [chiptrillino's amazing beautiful I-can't-even fanart of Spirit's North Pole hair](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/617113718543843328/chiptrillino-okay-listen-the-idea-of)
> 
> [wontonnerd's fanart of North Pole Spirit and lightning (and Momo)](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/617098464441106432/wontonnerd-i-figured-that-since-zuko-is-so-calm)
> 
> [bladehuntress's When the Cat Goes Quiet, Worry](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23989858)
> 
> [Stressball's Zuko Has A Cat (Or More Accurately, A Cat Has Zuko)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23971342)
> 
> [theandrogynousdragon's ficlet "Not Quite a Cat"](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/617195937502232576)


	27. Scaled Scout Li

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> younggayanddoingokay asked:
> 
> So uh, scaled over/scout li crossover. Li and his regimen accidentally discover that he can TURN INTO A FUCKING DRAGON WHAT THE FUCK LI?! Li is just as surprised as everyone else, naturally, and Captain Earth Kingdom Dad just puts his head into his hands and screams because how is this not even the most what-the-fuck thing that What the fuck li has done?

It happens at dinner. It happens when the rice is smoking and Li reaches to take it off the campfire _without wrapping his hands_ and no one is close enough to stop him this time, kid has zero sense of fire safety, you’d think he’d have learned with a face like that.

So he grabs the pot, already apologizing, and half a dozen men are shouting _no_ –

And then a whole-ass dragon is rearing back from the fire. With a smoldering cook pot between its stubby little arms. And its head is still tucked down like the kid’s had been, and it’s chirping in kind of a distressed way that might just be a dragon apology, and they realize two things really quick:

Li just turned into a dragon.

Li has no idea that turning into a dragon isn’t normal.

Until they’re staring at him too long and too hard and the guys who didn’t see it happen are shouting and grabbing their weapons, and then…

Well, it’s not clear if he figures it out then. But he knows he did something wrong, and that people are angry with him (and he’s always, always acted like he thinks they’re going to hurt him), and he learns real quick that dragons _can’t_ Use Their Words (not that he’d been great about that to begin with).

Which is why someone has to go get the Captain

Who has to climb up into the rafters of the ostrich-horse barn

And talk down the dragon who is curled miserably around a support beam in the ceiling.

What the fuck, Li.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #he was actually a pretty small dragon when he was all coiled up and trying to hide from the shouting #too big to hide behind the Captain's desk (...as they later learned) #but not big enough to ride #not that anyone was thinking of riding him #(EVERYONE was thinking of riding him) #(but he could only get in the air with Little Lee on board) #(solution: feed the dragon more) #and really everything else about him made more sense when they accepted he was an amnesic spirit of fire and questionable life choices #Scaled Scout


	28. Little Scaled Salvage: Dragon in the Baseboards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> okay two questions: 1, do u think zuko gives the crew a guide to the care and feeding of your wiggle snake, or do they have to just poke random foods in the wiggle snake'a direction to see what he'll eat. 2, the ask/tags on that post about cutting bby dragon zuko's nails made me so sad, so how does one go about apologizing/spoiling a bby danger noodle
> 
> Relevant context from the post they're referring to, regarding the vet trimming my cat's claws (...they did not ask me first):
> 
> So anyway, my cat spent the next few weeks accidentally scratching himself whenever he had an itch because his claws where not the size or shape he thought they were.
> 
> So that. But for a baby dragon who now has accidentally self-inflicted scratches all over and is miserable and doesn't WANT to wear the paw-booties he just wants his normal claws back please leave him alone, he'll be good--
> 
> #baby dragon finds every small gap between boards and crates and down the side of the bedframe in the Healer's room #and wedges his little snakey body in #because he is NOT hearing promises not to touch his nails again #and it doesn't matter if he stings from cuts the wood gives him #because he already stings everywhere #Scaled Salvage #be kind to your misery noodle #leave the claws alone

1\. That would require Zuko to know his own self-care basics

2\. It's been two days and the prince has not come out for food. Or water, which is more pressing. Humans can go three but it's rough, and he is a very _small_ dragon.

Small enough to wedge himself between the baseboard and the wall down in the crew cabin, and anytime they tried prying the wood loose he jammed himself into the next section. Hakoda preemptively vetoed taking the whole damn ship apart board by board. But that still leaves him with a dragon in the baseboards.

...He lets out a slow breath. And orders the room cleared. Sits in front of the Prince's current hiding spot, more or less, and pulls out The Paw Mittens.

The low hissing from the wall tells him he's in the right place, at least.

He brings out his knife next, and starts cutting. Just along the seams--a Water Tribe man doesn't just waste two pairs of perfectly good mittens. But it's enough to get the point across, he hopes.

A small black snout edges out of the boards. Retreats just as quickly, when it sees him watching.

Hakoda sets out a bowl, and fills it from his water skin. Lays a few strips of jerky next to it. Waits.

The dragon's head snakes slowly out. It goes for the water first. Rears back and puffs out his mane with a hiss when Hakoda moves to refill it for him. The jerky is devoured strip by strip, and it straightens imperiously as it waits for Hakoda to lay out the rest.

Hakoda doesn't. But he does set them on the floor in front of his crossed legs.

He's not entirely certain how human the prince is, either on two legs or especially like this. It would certainly explain certain tendencies of the royal family to light the world on fire, if Sozin's line were all this inhuman. But he's not trying to kill the little creature. The boy. Whatever he is.

Just catch him, and maybe find a fireproof bag to stuff him in until they could hand him back to his father.

The dragon took a cautious step forward. Another.

Hakoda kept his posture relaxed, hands resting on his knees (ready to grab the thing. One hand behind the skull and one behind the wings should do the trick, stop him from squirming free or biting. Like catching a rattle-mongoose. That could breath fire. ...He sincerely hoped the Fire Lord's reply was swift, or he might reconsider Fong's offer. Apparently the Earth Kingdom had dealt with royal dragons before.)

The dragon crept closer, its body low, practically slinking over the floorboards.

A little closer and he could--

The dragon stepped over the jerky bait on the floor, and into Hakoda's lap. It curled up even smaller than he thought it _could_ get. It pressed its eyes closed.

It was covered in scratches, from its own trimmed claws and its recent escapades.

It was _shaking_.

The prince was thirteen. Young for a human, and that had to be even younger for a dragon. He had spent two days without food or water and very likely without sleep, hiding inside a _wall_.

Hakoda lifted a hand, and slowly set it on the dragon's mane. He scratched behind its horn nubs, which was where all this nail-trimming and paw-mittens business had begun.

Prince Zuko _purred_.

Hakoda came back on deck with a baby dragon coiled in his arms, blinking sleepily. This was his life now.

The first crewmen to smirk got put on baseboard-restoration duty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #but really you need to stop scratching yourself kid #HISS #we'll leave your nails alone but #HISSS #this is not a productive dialogue #HISSSSSS #Scaled Salvage


	29. Phoenix Zuko

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mylifeisalieandididntknow asked:
> 
> Hey muffin. I've seen a lot of dragon zuko, which is amazing. But what if Zuko was a Phoenix... like... just... imagine

Katara had been right: it hadn't been much of a rematch. The Fire Prince went down under ice and snow and didn't get back up again.

It was Aang who was wrong. They could leave him, had to leave him, because--because _If we leave him he'll die_ didn't have a hold here.

Sokka knelt down next to the Prince with the rope, grumbling about _pacifists making their own problems._ Then he stopped. The grumbling, and the tying. He looked at Katara.

That was when she knew.

"Guys, we _really need to hurry,"_ Aang said, fidgeting with Appa's reins. Because he didn't know, yet.

She didn't regret it. She _didn't_ , he'd been their enemy for so long and he was trying to get Aang killed or worse, and he'd almost gotten both of them killed tonight with this stupid stunt of his--

(Why was he always so desperate? Where had those other injuries come from? Why hadn't he attacked with the rest of his fleet? She hadn't cared a minute ago, but now she could never ask him. And he could never answer.)

Sokka wasn't giving her a judging look. He understood, too. But he _was_ giving her a _you did it, you get to tell Aang_ look.

"Guys?" Aang called again.

"Aang," Katara said. "Zuko is... I..."

Which was the approximate point in time that the body _lit on fire._ Sokka scrambled backwards, spider-crab style. Katara stared. Aang jumped off Appa, and drifted down.

And started rummaging through the dying flames, and the _ashes_.

"Uh, Aang." Sokka said. "Aang, you have your hands all up in--in _Zuko."_

"Oh wow," the grave robbing (body robbing?) monk said. "I didn't know Zuko was a _phoenix._ They're really rare! Do you think _he_ knew?"

"A what now," Sokka said.

When Aang stood up again, there was a tiny ash-speckled chick shivering between his cupped hands. He scratched its head with a finger. The chick... peeped. It was pretty indignant, for such a small sound.

"But we really do have to hurry," Aang said, and turned to her. "Could you hold him? He needs to stay warm, phoenixes are _really_ not cold adapted."

And then Katara had a baby bird in her hands. Its feathers were pinkish-red and _fuzzy_. She couldn't feel them through her mittens but they looked even softer than mink-rabbit fur. She lifted one hand to pet it the way Aang had, but the chick cowered away. It took both her hands to stop it from tumbling down into the snow.

"And Katara?" Aang said. He was smiling in a way she'd never seen before, something that was the opposite of happy and carefree. "Try not to kill him again. Please. Most people don't come back from that. ...Avatars and phoenixes excluded. You got _really_ lucky."

The Prince of the Fire Nation huddled between her hands, shivering. Shaking. Staring out of the cage of her fingers with wide gold eyes. He would be really easy to kill like this.

...He _had_ been really easy to kill.

"I'll be careful," she promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #and then she tucked him down her coat #and there was way too much going on that night #and by the time things had settled his Uncle was nowhere to be found #...the chick liked Earth Kingdom weather a lot better #Phoenix Zuko #oops it's a kidnapping! #chick-napping? #and then Zuko learns to shift back #...to an age relative to his chick form... #the Gaang is never taking him seriously again
> 
> Notable additions:
> 
> carolofthebell:   
> Did we just find Katara adopts Zuko?
> 
> muffinlance:  
> Correction: we just found Katara Picks Up More Chicks Than Sokka.


	30. Fire Lily AU (Photosynthetic Zuko)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> younggayanddoingokay asked:
> 
> AU where the best firebenders, only the ones most in touch with Agni and their inner fire, are capable of photosynthesis, not needing to eat human sustenance unless they choose to. Except there hasn’t been a recorded case of this since before sozins time. Not even azula or ozai or iroh can. Which is why zuko is so surprised when he just randomly stops feeling hungry one day (please muffin, I’m begging you. I just want to redeem myself after accidentally helping to spawn Kindling AU)

Are you… are you _daring_ me to make _photosynthetic Zuko_ give you feels? Because that’s how you get Zuko first starting to realize this while on that raft after the North Pole. That’s how you get his hunger waning, and he’s reasonably sure that maybe he’s dying because he _should_ feel hungry, shouldn’t he? Not feeling hungry at all is probably not… not…

But. But Uncle is older than him and already suffering so much from the lack of water, it’s been two days since the last rain fall, so when Zuko manages to catch a fish while Uncle was sleeping

(Sleeping or unconscious and he couldn’t cross the few feet between them to check because what if this was the time that Uncle _didn’t wake up_ when Zuko shook him–)

when he catches the stupid fish he tells Uncle he actually caught two, he already ate his, stupid lazy old man just take it Zuko isn’t hungry, no he will _not_ eat half.

( _Uncle’s_ stomach can still growl.)

And somehow they make it to the colonies and neither of them are dead. Zuko… still isn’t hungry.

He isn’t hungry when he’s traveling alone, and he meets a boy named Lee and (badly) fixes a roof and accepts only the bare minimum of food at their table, because it’s clear that _they’re_ hungry.

Other travelers wear layers to keep off the burning sun; he sheds his until he’s down to a thin sleeveless robe, and basks.

He isn’t hungry again until Ba Sing Se. Until shifts at Pao’s tea shop, stuck inside from sunup to sundown, and Uncle finds him out back hunched over his stomach and promises that things will get better, here, have the other half of his lunch, you’ve barely been eating nephew–

(Zuko hadn’t recognized that he was hungry until there was food in his hand, and then he was _ravenous._ )

When he goes to free the Avatar’s bison (how did the Avatar lose a _bison_ ) (how did the Avatar not realize the Dai Li were behind every disappearance in this city), when he sees it down in that lightless cave, growling and backing away as far as its chains allow, the revulsion hits him like hunger pains, the kind that stab and twist. How dare they lock it away in this too-small stagnant hole with the darkness pressing down–

He’s already freeing it when Uncle shows up, how did Uncle get in here, well good because it’s not like he can free a bison and not free all of the actual human beings trapped down in this awful place, if Uncle is here he can help.

(Nephew when I said you were not thinking this through and questioned where you would store a bison, that also applied to all of these people–)

And then they run into the Avatar and his gaggle of combat prodigies _including Jet–_

Could we not. Try to stab each other. For _five minutes?_

Anyway, he’s done prison breaks with the Avatar before. And Long Feng can drop all the rocks he wants, they have the Dragon of the West with them. Turns out selective parts of Lake Laogai, namely the ones that were never supposed to be there, are highly flammable. With the application of enough fire.

(Most things are.)

Zuko is _starving_ by the time they get out. He doesn’t really remember getting ushered on the bison by his Uncle, or the glares and/or bewilderment the Avatar’s people shoot at him. (Or the extra toothy smile Uncle has for Jet, who looks away with a grumbled _knew you were firebenders_.)

“Thank you, Miss Katara,” Uncle smiles later, in a much different way, and brings a bowl of rice out to his nephew in the courtyard next to their house.

The Avatar’s children (plus some Freedom Fighters) stare out the window as Nephew Grumpy And Mildly Incoherent rolls away from his Uncle’s attempts to coax him into eating, sprawling out in a patch of sun.

“Is someone going to explain why Prince Zuko is shirtless in our courtyard?” Sokka asks, because someone has to. “Did Long Feng get him in the head?”

Appa lumbers over for licks and cuddles. Inexplicably Shirtless Prince shoves his giant head away, grumbling about six-ton furballs blocking his light.

“Oh,” Aang says, like something just clicked. “He’s a Fire Lily!”

“…A what now.”

“He gets his energy right from the sun!” There is something both delighted and vaguely threatening in the Avatar’s expression when he states, with no regard for the consent of the person he’s speaking on behalf of: _“He’s my firebending teacher.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #teach me your ways Sifu Flower #I too wish to ascend beyond mere vegetarianism #...what did you call me #and why do I feel the need to chase around the Avatar again #(Sokka is suitably appalled that not only does the Prince not eat meat) #(he doesn't really EAT) #(proof positive that the guy is evil) #Fire Lily AU #Photosynthetic Zuko #because WHY NOT #Drama Plant Zuko


	31. RL Update: Firstborn and Dragon Zuko Plushie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I MADE THESE.
> 
> AKA: Firstborn is healthy and happy and home. So is mommy, who is talking in the third person. Spousal Unit is somehow the most sleep deprived, he couldn't figure out how to make canned soup the other day and was Very Frustrated. Mommy made only minimal fun of him until after his next nap.
> 
> Also apparently my version of nesting is making older siblings, so enjoy Dragon Zuko. Pattern linked below, if you make him I totes demand pictures.

[Click here for Dragon Zuko pattern](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/619606614099607553/download-pdf-of-pattern-here)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes Dragon Zuko has ace colors for his body and a pride flag mane. Why-do-you-ask?


	32. Lily Salvage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:
> 
> oh no fire lily/salvage au. they hit winter and their pet firebender is going Full Drama Plant withering

Salvage canonically starts during winter. So.

They drag Ozai’s Spawn out of the water and get him warmed up and non-feverish but there is still something _wrong_ with him. Hopefully his father replies soon, because Healer Kustaa can’t find this in any of his books and none of them really want to accidentally kill the kid. Maybe on purpose, occasionally, but not _accidentally_.

The Fire Prince is still an angry shouty mess. But he also, just… occasionally conks out on the shoulder of whoever he’s eating next to. Or pretty much anytime he sits down for a break, which they are starting to realize he will never do unless physically forced, because they’re also starting to realize the kid is terrified. Of them, but also of whatever this is, because he clearly has no idea what’s wrong either but (he confides to Kustaa, who is not going to clear him leaving the infirmary ever again unless he talks and the idea of being trapped inside with just that little window for sunlight has Zuko _hyperventilating_ what is _wrong_ with him–) but. But it started back before the winter solstice and it’s been getting worse and he never got the chance to talk to his own ship’s healer.

(Never felt comfortable telling the man that he wasn’t feeling sick and he wasn’t injured, he was just _weak_. As if that wasn’t an accurate and incurable summary of his life.)

Fresh air seems to help. They let him on deck from sunrise to sunset and sit him down with the light chores. Watch him fall asleep on the edge of laundry tubs. Sokka/Scuttles stops barking at him and starts cuddling. There’s never any question of giving him to the Earth Kingdom. He’s Ozai’s kid, but he’s still a _kid_. He’s not that much trouble to keep around.

(If he’s dying, they’re not sending him to die in a lightless Earth Kingdom cell just because they weren’t men enough to watch it happen.)

Hakoda writes to the Fire Lord with increasing urgency. His son’s condition is not improving and the Water Tribe is not heartless, send a ship to meet at a neutral port and the Prince can go home. No terms, just a hope that their compassion may inspire similar sentiments in the Fire Nation–

The port is a trap they barely escape.

Hakoda holds a crying sixteen year old who is too tired to fight hugs. He’s useless and he’s dead weight and his father used him to try and kill everyone, he doesn’t understand why they haven’t just thrown him overboard or slit his throat, he’s a waste of food.

Not like he’s eating much, anyway.

Winter gives way to spring. The former prince is still alive, still on their ship. Still doing their laundry and falling asleep on convenient shoulders. They’re pretty sure he’s doing it on purpose now, he certainly doesn’t complain when they wrap an arm around him or set a hand in his hair, but it’s not like he’ll ever admit it.

The only illnesses Kustaa have found that are anywhere near this all talk about pain in their descriptions, about the body attacking itself from the inside. The kid _says_ nothing hurts, but. He stops eating entirely; no one presses him on it.

He doesn’t die.

The days get longer, he sprawls out in sunbeams and blinks sleepily up at them, he still doesn’t die.

He gets enough energy to shout at Toklo and Panuk about women’s work, and he hasn’t eaten anything in two weeks, and he still doesn’t die.

He climbs the spirits-damned main mast and refuses to come down, grinning like an idiot at having the energy to cause trouble again and it’s been a month since he had anything but water and _how is he not dead._

Kustaa returns all his well-paged reference books to the shelf. Shrugs. Orders the kid to keep up his sunbathing and his mast climbing and any other physical activities that feel good, they seem to be helping.

It is high summer and the kid is a squid-monkey up in their rigging and _still not dead,_ the only thing he bothers even trying to eat are the sea prunes he’s getting really good at stealing off their plates. He’s a nervous ball of _very healthy energy_ about the coming fleet rendezvous at Chameleon Bay. And they just.

They didn’t sign up for this when they hauled him on deck all those months ago.

But he’s their problem now, and they’re keeping him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Lily Salvage #the flower shop AU you never knew you needed #Fire Lily AU #Drama Plant Zuko


	33. Salvage: Fire Lord Zuko at the South Pole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the-bi-bilingual asked:
> 
> I've just been picturing in salvage: grown up(like??20+?) Firelord!Zuko going down to the Southern Tribe for "Diplomatic Relations", and as soon as he steps off the ship he ditches the robes and crown and topknot, yanks his hair into a wolftail, grabs his parka (No it's not one of Hakoda's old ones What Do You Mean?)and asks Dadkoda what his first chore is PLEASE I DONT WANNA BE FIRELORD FOR LIKE. AN HOUR!

The Fire Lord greets Chief Hakoda with stiff formality, and the royal guard are reminded that this is the man who once held their young lord hostage for months.

The Fire Lord dismisses the guard to wait on the ship; it would be seen as fear and weakness for him to shield himself behind others during these negotiations. He briefed them on this necessity, though it does not make it easier for them to leave him alone.

The Fire Lord enters one of their squat buildings as his guards wait on deck, hyper-alert for any sign of his distress.

The Fire Lord lets out a Dramatic Sigh™ and tilts face-first into Hakoda’s hug as soon as he’s out of his people’s sight, not particularly caring that there are leaders from other tribes also in attendance. Chief Panuk is already grinning at him from across the hall. Toklo is trying to squeeze all the air out of his lungs, _oww,_ who even invited him in here, so help Zuko if someone put HIM in charge of people–

The other Southern leaders stare at this Literal Child dressed up in all the pretentious finery of the enemy they’ve fought for a century.

The other leaders take joy that evening in bossing the young Fire Lord around in the sauna hut, more steam less steam too hot not hot enough–

The other leaders are baffled the next morning to find the Fire Lord with his sleeves rolled up, helping their wives and daughters do laundry.

Their wives and daughters have noted that their husbands and fathers are bullying this awkward young man. Their wives and daughters Do Not Approve.

…The other leaders stop doing that, in the interests of being served meals.

The Fire Lord never really noticed the bullying, nor does he notice its absence, because most of the Akhlut’s crew is in town and Bullying Is Affection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #his royal guard continue to be Very Concerned #especially when they can hear him yelling all the way from the ship #are those men assaulting him? is that what assault looks like? #pretty sure that's just a hug -- Izumi probably #Salvage


	34. Zuko Who

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> younggayanddoingokay asked:
> 
> I saw your timey wimey reference! So uh, would thirteen adopt zuko, or would iroh attempt to adopt them both? Or would twelve just take the tardis back to before the Agni Kai to give ozai a full on Scottish-Gallifreyan bitch slap and steal smol!zuko then?

Picture: the Agni Kai field. A young prince, unscarred, kneeling, face upturned.

Picture: The dark silhouette of his father, striding towards him.

Picture: The TARDIS plonking down right on top of him, to the resounding silence of all Caldera.

Your favorite Doctor steps out. Something squishes under their foot. The something is Ozai, done Wicked Witch of the East Style.

Picture: Your favorite Doctor accidentally kidnapping a shocked child as they madly flee the local authorities.

Picture Companion!Zuko, now age sixteen, expert at duct tape repairs on time machines and at Not Putting Up With The Doctor’s Shit. Duel wielder of sonic screwdrivers.

Picture Iroh, still in pursuit after all this time, with the only ally in time-space travels he could find.

Picture the Master, now an expert tea connoisseur.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #The Doctor: you realize that’s just hot leaf juice
> 
> #The Master: *GRAVE OFFENSE*
> 
> #Zuko: How’d it work?
> 
> #The Doctor: Like a charm! He was still monologuing about ginseng last I–Zuko are these explosives
> 
> #Zuko: are they. your technology is so strange to me
> 
> #The Doctor: That excuse didn’t work when you were thirteen and it doesn’t work now
> 
> #Zuko: *maintains eye contact as he reaches out and presses the arm switch*
> 
> #and then there is running
> 
> #it’s EXHILARATING
> 
> #Zuko Who


	35. Soulmark Salvage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> duleypostnoted asked:
> 
> Okay Okay Okay.... so anyone up for Parental soulmarks Zuko and Hakoda AU of Salvage??? Imagine ZUKO knowing who his Marked Parent is but not HAKODA who only has like idk the blue spirit mask or the dao swords or smth. Maybe soulmarks can't be injured off of someone? So Loserdad couldn't burn it off of him (though not for lack of TRYING)

Zuko, born with his face half done up in vividly beautiful Water Tribe wolf warrior paint: *canon typical scarring occurs MUCH earlier* *hey, at least Ursa caught him when Ozai tried to instinctively yeet a newborn out the window*

— Years later, but not nearly long enough —

Hakodad, fishing a shivering Fire Nation gremlin out of the water and seeing wolf warrior paint starting to bleed back in wherever his scar has healed: Shit, whose child is this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #can't just throw him back overboard with a face like that #angry bb!Zuko: didn't stop my real dad #Hakoda: fuck I'M your dad #Salvage #Soulmark Salvage
> 
> Normally I do not post snippets this short but MAN this exploded overnight, there is so much beautiful fanart and ficlets, Zuko with his wolf warrior soulmark is such a baby I can't even, click here and enjoy the scroll: [#Soulmark Salvage](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/tagged/Soulmark-Salvage)


	36. Plushie Zuko

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mira-jadeamethyst asked:
> 
> My sister, galaxy-brained, upon seeing the fanart of the plushie fanart: give Zuko a plushie Zuko. Me: [processes that] tradition in the Fire Nation? My sister, nodding firmly: tradition in the Fire Nation.

Me, seeing this ask: How much you want to bet that Zuko made a point of leaving behind his plushie self when he was banished because he wasn’t a baby anymore.

And then Azula, also not a baby, found it and made a big show of burning half its face off in front of father. Quite the display of control, only burning exactly the cloth she meant. Quite a display of something else, as well. Father was well pleased on both counts.

The plushie Zuko now lives on a shelf in Azula’s room. Not a toy; a reminder.

A reminder of something else, as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #when Azula attacks them at the Western Air Temple #she throws plushie Azula at her brother's face #he clutches it as he watches her fall #and it disappears into his bag after that #post comet he brings it with him on visits to the asylum #because plushie Azula misses the plushie Zuko that lives in Azula's otherwise empty room #Azula scoffs #but allows these visits #because she knows plushie Zuko is still just a big baby who needs his plushie sister #no other reason


	37. Pakku v the Patriarchy (genderbent!Pakku AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Me: “Master Pakku, genderbent and kicking open doors before Katara ever got North (and yes Kanna’s engagement necklace was still from her)”
> 
> Two snippets from this AU.

_Anonymous asked:_

_could u maybe.....elaborate on the genderbent!pakku au??? i want this au SO BAD, pls feed me_

“Marry me.”

“I can’t,” Kanna said, because she had to go, or nothing would change. “Come with me?”

“I can’t,” Pakka said. Because she had to stay, or nothing would change.

#they were holding mittened hands #and then they weren't #Pakku v the Patriarchy

%%%

_Anonymous asked:_

_In the gender bent pakku AU tho would she be more inclined to train Katara??_

Ice crested like water, leaving her pinned, beaten, trapped in her own element. Frozen to a wall for everyone to see, and the humorless white-haired woman showed no inclination of releasing her. Her hands were clasped behind her back. She was already walking away.

“You learned!” Katara shouted. “You had to struggle against them too, you had to fight, and you learned! Why won’t you teach me?”

Pakka glanced back, one eyebrow arched. “You have a certain talent for answering your own questions, child.”

She kept walking.

Katara shouted after her. Shouted so loud she couldn’t hear the boys on the street laughing at her. Or the men. Or the other girls, the ones who lived surrounded by waterbending but never reached out to take it.

Katara grit her teeth and clenched her hands. The ice around her cracked free.

She struggled. She fought. She learned.

Pakka _was_ teaching her.

#let's apply some lessons #to your FACE #Pakku v the Patriarchy


	38. Fortuneteller Zuko

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:
> 
> Brand new Zuko Adopted idea: he gets adopted by the fortune teller lady from that one episode. Madame Wu, I think her name was.

On one hand, I kind of hate that episode. I didn’t mind it much in the show, but the endless near-identical replays that fanfics have subjected me to have left me DEEPLY AVERSE to Aunt Wu and her town. I now root for the volcano.

But.

 _But_.

Zuko as Wu’s assistant? Zuko raised to read fortunes and deny science to Sokka’s face?

Yes.

YES.

The ~~tiger~~ troll!Zuko is free!

Episode goal: start with everyone in the Gaang being fairly sympathetic to Zuko. End with them all HATING him. And then they’re stuck with him for three whole seasons.

So they show up like usual, but instead of having the one assistant, Wu has two: the canon girl, and this scarred teenager. Both are very pleasant and accommodating, right up until Sokka opens his mouth. Then Zuko snatches the bowl out of his hands.

“No snacks for skeptics,” he says.

Sokka’s Hate: ✓

Katara and Aang’s Love: ++

Continue episode as normal. Katara keeps coming back a million times, until Zuko stands outside the shut door like a bodyguard, arms crossed.

“But Aunt Wu tells fortunes for free!” Katara says.

“Do you think ‘free’ lets her keep this house? Or pay for food? Your trial subscription has ended.”

Katara grumblingly pays. Zuko pockets the money, and does not move.

“Aunt Wu is free. _I_ cannot be paid enough to deal with this. You’re trying to figure out what 'a powerful bender’ means? Here’s a hint: you’re traveling with the _Avatar_.”

Sokka and Katara’s Hate: ✓

Aang’s Love: ++

Episode: resume. Volcano: erupt. Zuko reveals himself as a firebender as he helps put out fires around town after Aang’s big bending display. He does this with the most done-with-this air possible.

Aang loses his spirits-damned mind. “YOU’RE A FIREBENDER, BE MY TEACHER, PLEASE BE MY–”

“Yeah, sure.”

“–TEACHER! WAIT REALLY? FLAMEO!”

“Never say that again or I am throwing you off your own bison.”

Sokka and Katara are not particularly keen to have the Snack-Snatching Extortionist on Appa, but hey, mostly non-evil firebender. They’ll take him. …Reluctantly.

Time: One Hour Later

Location: Bison Back

“Is it true that the strongest firebenders can sense volcanic eruptions before they happen?” asks Aang.

“Yeah, I can teach you to do that,” answers Zuko.

“Cool! …Wait. So you knew it was going to erupt? Did you try to tell Wu, and she didn’t listen? We did that–”

“Nope.”

“–too. _What.”_

“I really hated that town,” Zuko says.

“So you would just betray the woman who raised you?” Katara says.

“She saw it coming.”

“NO SHE DIDN’T,” yells Sokka.

Sokka and Katara’s Hate: ✓

Aang’s Growing Unease Because Hate-Is-a-Strong-Word: ++

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Sokka: /are/ you an evil firebender? #Zuko: well I'm the Fire Lord's son #so #Earth Kingdom citizens in a town several hundred feet below: *glance up at the sound of screaming coming from that small cloud* #Fortuneteller Zuko


	39. Garden Head AU: Salvage Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous (@butterflyboss2) asked:
> 
> So my friends and i came up with a sort of AU where people sprout flowers in their hair when they feel any sort of love. So anyways, ahklut crew teases Zuko about how many blue family flowers have been growing in his hair the longer he stays on the ship.

This puts his Season One hair into a whole new perspective.

—

Uncle’s hair has dried flowers: his wife’s panda lily, Lu Ten’s dragon ivy. Everyone knows that dead flowers aren’t as fragile as they seem, but he has the crewmen carry an umbrella over him when it rains, anyway. Carefully, he combs around them every morning. _Leaves from the vine_ , Zuko hears him crooning sometimes, even though Lu Ten won’t ever lose his leaves. He won’t grow any new ones, either.

(Tucked away under his greying strands, still too close to the scalp to be easily seen, a bud has been growing for years. Iroh does not pressure it to bloom, but he does look forward to the occasion.)

(And then a storm, and the Dragon of the West realizes there is no way to tell a dead bloom from a live one without prying its petals open, and this he cannot do. A dead bloom can never heal.)

The Akhlut’s crew find the Fire Prince’s shaved head profane. When he’s caught stealing razors, they crack down. Stubble grows around the black ponytail. Flowers don’t.

(At thirteen, the Fire Lord set a hand on Zuko’s face, and burned Ursa’s sheltering rose bramble away. It would have grown back if she was alive.)

(“It would have grown back if she still loved you,” Azula corrects him, and he’s never sure if it was a fever dream that placed her next to his sick bed, or if she really was there, her precise flames as good as any garden shears as she burned his fire lily from above her ear.)

“Whose is that?” Toklo asks, delighted and too loud, when he catches sight of the little sprig of blue flowers that are only visible when the Fire Prince lets his hair down to wash.

“No one,” Zuko says, loudly. “My little sister,” he says, more quietly.

Uncle’s white jade flower is too large, too showy, it sticks out as it curls above his head. He snips it off between his fingers each morning, but it never stops trying to come back.

The crewmen, their own heads in ruckus and unashamed bloom, watch his daily pruning with distaste. No one ever catches what the Fire Lord’s flower looks like; they can never catch him pruning it.

(They assume it’s there to be pruned.)

(Zuko would like to know what his father’s love looks like, too.)

His outrage at Toklo’s snowdrops peaking their way through his black fuzz is as hilarious as it is worrying.

(“Don’t get attached, Toklo,” they warn.

“But _warm water,”_ says their youngest crewmember, who has never seen a reason to be stingy with his love.)

The Fire Prince shouts and steams. The snowdrops shake quite merrily in his rage. He doesn’t pluck them.

He doesn’t pluck Kustaa’s grudging little cloudberry flowers, either.

“Are you loving me to _spite_ me?” the Fire Prince accuses.

“Yes,” says Kustaa, who parted his hair specifically to show off the new little bud trying so hard to hide.

They don’t give the boy to the Earth Kingdom. They forget to scowl while they teach him how to do new things. They stop threatening him, mostly. That shouldn’t be all it takes for those little buds to start spreading among the crew.

(The Wani’s crew had them, too. Back when the prince was a shouty little thirteen year old monster, they’d taken it as a sign that things would soon get better. Things did not get better. Most of them forgot about those under-developed buds, except on the odd occasion when their combs would jar against them.)

Then they fight a Fire Navy ship, and find the prince curled up as far as he can get from the man he’s killed. Kustaa holds him as he shakes, a fire lily in full bloom on his head. It would look ridiculous, if it didn’t look so much like blood.

He’s not the prince for long after that.

His hair isn’t so barren of flowers for long after that, either. Eventually, he even lets his real uncle’s bloom find its place among the rest. It doesn’t look so overbearing, when it’s not so alone.

“I miss him,” The boy admits, as they sit on the main mast (as one does).

Somewhere far, but not too far, a tired old man passes his mirror, and catches the impossible flash of something new. A red fire lily, finally unfurled into bloom.

“Zuko,” he says.

This neatly accelerates his plans for active treason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #elsewhere #the Princess Azula begins to set a court fashion for hats #(to hide her complete lack of flowers the courtiers whisper where they think she can't hear) #(a safer whisper than the brilliant crimson truth tucked above her right ear) #(when she looks in the mirror now) #(she can tell mother to shut up) #(it's a big dumb flower from a big Dum-Dum) #Garden Head AU #like Radiohead #but not #Salvage #Garden Salvage
> 
> [Fanart by @the-peregrine!](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/631237962262298624/love)


	40. Garden Head AU: Punch a Princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fandomharmony-writer:
> 
> Wait, is Ursa actually dead? Or is the flower just not growing back because she had forgotten her children and has a new face?
> 
> Because if so, that puts a whole new layer on it! Ursa can't love someone she doesn't know, so no flowers for them. Zuko and Azula assume she's dead (or never loved them, in Azula's case) and Zuko doesn't hold on to the hope that she will come back. He'll still want to know what happened, but he won't as actively look for her/ask about her/try to figure it out, because he assumes the worst.
> 
> Maybe in the background, Ursa catches herself wondering where three more flowers are. (White Jade flowers make her think of a kind man, Fire Lilies like her own make her think of a sweet little boy, and tiny, ever so small blue flowers, cuz you bet Azula loved her mom when she was little!) Of course, Ursa doesn't know what this means. She's never met people like that.

There are flowers on momma’s head that she doesn’t see. Momma sees daddy’s chrysanthemum, which is in Kiyi’s hair too, big and real hard to miss and sometimes when Kiyi was a baby (she is NOT a baby now, she’s BIG), she would try to grab the thick strong stem and dangle by it which momma said was a No Never Do That even though Kiyi didn’t see why, if it fell out a new one would grow back so quick she could make a bouquet just from daddy’s love for them and that was real pretty see? But momma’s eyes were pinched and she didn’t put them in water like she would have for boring ground flowers.

And Kiyi’s flowers were on momma’s head, too! They were a little lilac sprig which she tried to make bigger by sucking in a breath and puffing out her cheeks and loving momma more, but it didn’t work, probably because she already loved momma the Most.

(“Dear,” momma said to daddy, “please stop telling her that will work.”

“But it’s hilarious,” daddy said.)

Kiyi knew the lilacs were hers because daddy had them too, and so did grandma and grandpa On Daddy’s Side. She wanted to meet the ones On Mommy’s Side too because she wanted to see if she’d loved them hard enough to make flowers grow without ever meeting them, but momma didn’t ever remember her asking about them, the same way she didn’t remember the other flowers in her hair.

(Seo Yun from school said they were probably dead, which is why she punched Seo Yun, which was why she had to stay home for three days. She wasn’t sure why that was a punishment, except that next week it had been her turn to take the class goldfish-hamster home for the weekend but Sifu Jian wouldn’t let her because Little Girls Who Punch Don’t Get Pets, which is why Sifu gave it to Seo Yun instead, which is why Kiyi pulled Seo Yun’s hair. But she didn’t pull at Seo Yun’s flowers, because smelly hamster stealers didn’t deserve bouquets.)

The flowers that momma couldn’t see weren’t hiding, but sometimes Kiyi forgot them too. She’d forget for days and days, but then she’d open her Future Master Artist sketch book and see the fire lily and blue flowers picture and she’d remember. She’d remember that she’d drawn them on page one so she wouldn’t forget, but she’d forgotten anyway, so she needed to remember harder. She needed to remember harder for momma, who would gasp and clap a hand over her mouth and start to stand and start to cry when Kiyi pointed her Forgetting Flowers out, but before she could finish saying “I need to–” she would forget again, which made her scared and confused, so Kiyi would finish the sentence for her.

“You were making me cookies,” Kiyi would say, or “You were taking me to the park,” or “You were braiding my hair.” And then momma would smile and it would start like a fake smile but then it would turn real, which is how Kiyi knew momma had forgotten again.

She made a bouquet of the Forgetting Flowers once to put on the table so momma could remember longer (it was mostly fire lilies, because they grew back So Fast). But that was the day momma came in and saw them and fell down and started scratching her face and it was really scary so Kiyi didn’t do it again.

But somewhere there were two people that loved her momma as much as Kiyi and daddy did, except that momma didn’t remember them enough to love them back, so Kiyi decided she would love them instead.

When she braided momma’s hair at night, she’d tell them about her day. She called them Brother Red and Sister Blue, because she’d always wanted siblings, but talking about that made momma forgetting-sad too.

And then there was an earthquake and a tsunami and the ocean ate part of the town, which daddy said was because she took too many seashells and it got hungry…

(“Ikem, do NOT tell our daughter that.”

“But,” he said, “it’s hilarious.”)

…and then the Fire Princess came to visit them with a lot of stuffy people who started passing out blankets and gross dry food.

“Say thank you, Kiyi,” momma said.

“Thank you for the gross food,” she said, which made the Fire Princess toss her head back and cackle. It was a very good cackle, and Kiyi told her so.

And then she noticed a fire lily just like Brother Red’s and a little lilac just like one of hers, and she got really excited, which the Fire Princess did not seem to know what to do with the same way Kiyi didn’t know what to do that time she’d jumped in mud except it wasn’t mud it was dog-horse doodoo and now it was inside of her shoes.

“You’re my sister!” Kiyi said, which is when momma apologized and tried to drag her away, which was probably also because momma looked like she had a real bad headache, like looking at the Princess made her hurt.

“I think not,” the Fire Princess said. “As if I would be related to a filthy peasant child–”

Which is when Kiyi wiggled out of momma’s grip and stomped back and punched her.

And anyway that was how she learned that momma had another face under hers, which was weird and Kiyi didn’t like, but also that Kiyi really did have a brother and sister, which was AWESOME.

And her Best Sister Azula heard about Sifu Jian not letting her take the goldfish-hamster home for the weekend and then Sifu Jian’s house was on fire.

“You can’t do that!” said her new brother, who was the Fire Lord, except he seemed too young and too easy to bully to be the Fire Lord and Kiyi told him so, and also promised to stomp on the feet of any ministers or generals who gave him trouble, because momma said No More Punching.

“Oh, like you’ve never burned down someone’s house before,” her new sister said. “Besides, it’s hilarious.”

Which is how Kiyi knew that her new sister and her daddy would get along. New sister said that was stupid and Kiyi was stupid, and also that she would have to learn new attacks if she wanted to retaliate, because Sister Azula had seen that foot stomping coming from a mile off. So that’s when Kiyi started learning to be Deadly Like a Proper Big Sister.

“She is not my big sister!” her new brother said.

“What do we say to our little brother, Kiyi?”

“ ‘Quiet, Zuzu, your betters are plotting.’ ”

And Zuzu shouted that he hated them both, but they both had big fire lilies in their hair, so Kiyi’s new little brother the Fire Lord didn’t know what he was talking about. And Kiyi was a Big Girl, and a Big Sister, and also a princess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #and the moral of the story is that if you punch a princess you become a princess #that's what daddy said and it was true #STOP TELLING HER THESE THINGS said momma #who was a great momma but was usually wrong #Garden Head AU #Hananoai is the name given to this AU by butterflyboss2 #who is the original ask sender <3


	41. Water Dragon Zuko

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pinkdartfrog asked:
> 
> What if Zuko was a water dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This became a whole THING in one day, as things on my blog tend to do. A round up of the most substantive posts is herein contained.

_pinkdartfrog asked:_

_What if Zuko was a water dragon_

  
  


Ozai would discover this while trying to drown his tiny son in the bath

This happens on the first day little Azula firebends

  
  


#baby and bathwater and DRAGONS

#Ursa clubs Ozai over the head while he's still in shock and they make their escape

#Azula honey I have a Very Important Job for you

#only Big Girls could do it

#you need to hold this dragon and be quiet because the dragon will be scared if you're not

#Azula: *will later be very offended that Zuko claims to be her brother when he is clearly Her Dragon*

#Zuko: *IS NOT WEARING A SADDLE*

#As a sizeable portion of Azulon's family was just killed by a water dragon (as reported by his grieving son Ozai)

#Azulon diverts his eldest from the planned siege of Ba Sing Se towards an attack on the Water Tribes

#knowing how pained he would be if anything were ever to happen to his wife and son

#General-Prince Iroh vows to his brother that he will get justice for them

#Water Dragon Zuko AU

  
  


%%%

  
  


_vlanderzine asked:_

_Plot twist, Zuko is a fuckin Unagi_

  
  


The toddling daughter’s demands for her princess clothes and her dragon were met with fondness by the people aboard the small passenger ship. Her demands for her daddy, and her older brother’s persistent air of shocked stillness, were a cause for sympathy. Here was a new widow traveling with her children to family in the colonies, some whispered.

The ship docked to resupply on Kyoshi. The woman and her children disembarked, to the surprise of everyone going on to the next port in safe, respectable Fire Nation territory.

Ursa was not very knowledgeable about politics and geography outside of her country’s reach, but she had once heard the war ministers complaining of the impertinence of Kyoshi’s continued neutrality, so she took a chance.

It was a bad chance to take, with pale skin and gold eyes and a daughter whose tantrum on the docks (this isn’t Ember Island, you said this was a vacation, don’t want this stupid fish-smelly place want DAD) threw firefly sparks into the air.

Then there were angry villagers and the Kyoshi warriors and the usual talk of the Unagi, and who may or may not be thrown to them. The Unagi itself, to whom a dockside commotion was like shaking a treat box, came to investigate. It looked down at the new-maybe-food with wiggly hopefulness in all its great coils. One of the maybe-foods glared back at it.

The first sound Zuko had made since they’d fled was a hiss. No one really noticed over the general yelling, except the Unagi. The Unagi was also the first to notice the small boy hurl himself into the water, and it gleefully snapped its jaws downward at this self-gifting morsel even as its mother screamed.

Everyone went abruptly quiet at the Unagi’s startled yelp.

And then it started shaking its snout, but the tiny terror was not so easily dislodged.

Zuko was not an unagi, but he did not hesitate to bite one.

  
  


#Zuko: CHOMP

#The Unagi: *great dane submitting to the tyranny of a pom puppy*

  
  


%%%

  
  


_chaoticly-shy-dragon replied to your ask post:_

_Azula would be so proud of her dragon. He bit a bigger dragon and lived._

  
  


“My dragon beat your dragon,” says the toddler, “This island is mine now.”

“That’s not how it works,” they say.

They are wrong.

  
  


#momma says a real princess is beneviolent

#('benevolent' honey)

#yes that

#so I will let you live here too

#now bring tribute for my dragon and me we like Dessert Before Dinner

  
  


%%%

  
  


_Anonymous asked:_

_Oooh — tsunami? Would that mean that Zuko is a waterbender here?_

  
  


“Katara. Katara please don’t antagonize the nice dragon–”

“TEACH ME,” Katara says, and kidnaps a dragon.

  
  


#Zuko making desperate eyes at Azula: save me

#Azula examining her nails: oh I'm sorry someone was just roaring about how he's NOT my dragon

#I'm afraid my ears are still ringing can't hear you

  
  


%%%

  
  


_Anonymous asked:_

_Lu-ten finds baby Azula holding a tiny danger noodle. He just knows it's gonna be a long day once he realizes it's Zuko_

  
  


“Azula?” Lu Ten pulls off his helmet, stepping deeper into the unnatural warmth of the Spirit Oasis.

It… It really is her. She looks just like the portraits of Aunt Ursa when she was young, just like the young woman she would have grown to be, if she hadn’t been killed by–

The water dragon whimpers, coiling behind her apparition as if to hide, half it’s face the ruined char that Uncle Ozai had left it when it had tried to assassinate him in his quarters during the South Pole extermination. It’s… a lot smaller than Uncle Ozai talked it up to be.

“Hello, Lu Ten,” the spirit of his dead cousin says. “I see you’ve already met my dragon Zuko. He tells me you’re trying to take my North Pole.”

And then she lights blue fire in her hand like dad told him no spirit should be able to do, and Lu Ten’s world becomes three times more complicated and ten times more _hot hot hot–_

  
  


#dearest cousin Lu Ten

#I JUST took this wasteland from the patriarchy

#I'm not about to give it to you

  
  


%%%

  
  


_Anonymous asked:_

_Okay but that last ask sounds suspiciously like Azula is willing to get along with Katara especially when it has the added benefit of annoying Zuko in which case the world is clearly going to be ruled by them in some way shape or form- the two of them would be an unstoppable team_

  
  


“Hmm, you’re right,” Azula said, staring down at the map. “So, new plan: I’ll marry the Earth King, and you’ll marry my dragon–”

“I’ll WHAT?”

  
  


#it's a Zutara Peace Marriage AU my dear sister-in-law

#do try to keep up

  
  


%%%

  
  


_spawnofkiwi asked:_

_Does zuko ever get to be human again?_

  
  


Zuko: *changes back to human*

Sokka: *screams*

Katara: …Okay that marriage thing makes so much more sense now

  
  


#Azula: *dumps another bucket of water on him*

#bad dragon no human

#Katara: *bends water off and lets him change back*

#Sokka: WOULD YOU AT LEAST GIVE HIM PANTS

  
  


%%%

  
  


_sincerely-mrstranger asked:_

_How does Water Dragon Zuko react to the Foggy Swamp and its many inhabitants?_

  
  


The Gaang: *searching with increasing desperation for Zuko*

The Foggy Swamp Tribe: Well that sure is the skinniest catergator I ever seen, someone get him some bugs

  
  


#Zuko be sunning with the other catergators

#he's a happy little lizard log

  
  


%%%

  
  


_Anonymous asked:_

_As if Azula would let her dragon be separated from her_

  
  


– says Katara.

Azula throws up her hands.

“Fine! So Zuko stays with me, which means I have to take the throne. And–ugh–have _heirs._ So I’ll marry Sokka–”

“You’ll WHAT?” yelps her new fiancee.

“–Which means you’ll have to take charge of your throne, as well, Katara–”

“We call it a chiefdom,” Katara says, “but okay.”

“Not once you marry Princess Yue, you won’t. That still leaves the Earth King–”

“The guy who trained his whole life to be someone else’s puppet king?” Toph asks. _“Dibs.”_

A smile stretches over Azula’s face.

“Oh, I _knew_ I was going to like you.”

“Can we go back to the part where I’m the Fire Lord?” Sokka asks.

But the conversation has already moved on, and Yue and Katara are too busy looking deeply into each other’s eyes and imagining a Water Tribe united in eternal bilineal matriarchy.

  
  


#Aang: What about me?

#Azula: the Avatar shouldn't tie himself to a single Nation

#so you can have the bear

  
  


%%%

  
  


_titanic-ente asked:_

_Did Zuko ever travel in a tea pot?_

  
  


After being burned by his father, a hurt little snek stumbles into a nearby room and finds the first safe place to hide (read: curl into a coil of pain and pass out.)

Some time later, General-Prince Iroh opens his tea pot, then closes his tea pot. He wraps a bow around this tea pot and orders it sent to the Southern Tribe along with his latest request for parlay. A promise of goodwill and goodtea, he tells the messenger, with a chuckle.

(This tiny little creature is a water dragon, but it is clearly too small to be the dragon who has wronged Iroh’s family.)

  
  


#when Ozai starts crowing about the fierce dragon he fought off in his own quarters

#Iroh humors him less than Ozai thought he would

  
  


%%%

  
  


_titanic-ente asked: So, can Zuko change size in dragon form? Play ball with boats, but still hide behind his sisters legs?_

  
  


Dragon Zuko is whatever size the ask sender most desires

  
  


_spawnofkiwi replied to your ask post:_

_What if he grow and shrunk based off of the amount of water like if he was in the ocean he’d grow really big and so forth._

  
  


Water Dragon Zuko == grow-in-water animal toy

Head canon accepted

I now picture scarf-dragon as having tons of tightly meshed scales, and when you drop him in water they just... stretch apart, until he is a Chonky Round Snek.

  
  


%%%

  
  


_Anonymous asked:_

_Imagine Hakoda being handed that teapot Iroh sent, wondering just "what?" and then he opens it and there's an honest to god WATER DRAGON in there_

  
  


The Fire Nation had come again.

At first, Hakoda assumed they knew who they’d murdered; that, realizing they’d killed the Chief’s wife, and lacking other leads, they’d blamed the assassination of their Fire Lord’s kin on the Southern Tribe just to have someone to blame. It certainly made more sense than these accusations of a water dragon. If Hakoda had hired an assassin, he wouldn’t have sent it after children.

The Fire Lord’s sons, blockading the trade routes south, feigned disbelief. _Give us the dragon and we will leave,_ their messengers said, knowing there was no dragon to give. Dragons were Fire Nation animals; what would the Water Tribe have to do with one? They had tales of water serpents, not water dragons.

The creatures didn’t exist, the ashmakers knew it as surely as he did, and soon they’d use their self-made excuse to finish the job their raiders had started.

Then General-Prince Iroh sent him a teapot.

A teapot with a baby water dragon inside.

Hakoda was not sure what he knew, after that.

  
  


#but the dragon was freshly burned

#so this probably wasn't a peace offering

  
  


%%%

  
  


_titanic-ente asked:_

_Doesn't Hakoda now technically have a water dragon he could give those Fire Nation Messengers?_

  
  


– says Bato.

“But they’re the ones who gave it to me!” says Hakoda, one hand massaging his temple.

The other is still wiggling a piece of seal jerky to lure the dragon pup out of Sokka’s bedroll.

Hakoda does not understand whatever Fire Nation head game they’re playing.

  
  


#Zuko: old hiding place uncovered MUST FIND NEW PLACE

#Sokka: MAGIC WATER SNAKE IN MY BEDROLL DAD HELP

  
  


%%%

  
  


_Anonymous asked:_

_Does water dragon Zuko like scritches on his little tummy? Cause i can see him being very popular with Sokka if he is_

  
  


Sokka does not get to touch the belly until he stops making dragon jerky jokes

  
  


#Katara has unlimited access to the CHONK Pillow

#my phone decided CHONK was all caps

#it's not wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is an adorable gift fic for this AU! [Bath Time by Thrushsong_kVari](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28763631)
> 
> There is also much [fanart](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/search/fanart%20water%20dragon).


	42. Salvage: Panuk's Backstory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sincerely-mrstranger asked:
> 
> MuffinLance, what's Panuk's backstory? (Vent away to your heart's content, your audience awaits you with baited breath.)

I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED

Okay, so, the trading tribes Sokka briefly mentioned? Generally based on the northern coasts, travelled widely, merchants who were starting to build some permanent settlements around the time the war first began and were running into early cultural friction within the rest of the Southern Water Tribe as they shifted worldviews from semi-nomadic to “land owning”.

HEAVILY hit by the initial raids, many towns straight up wiped off the map, with survivors joining other tribes.

Panuk’s tribe was a little further south, and not hit in the initial attacks. They adapted… by trading with the Southern Raiders, and generally being a good little role model of a “civilized” Fire Nation colony on Water Tribe grounds. They were a nice safe harbor for the Fire Nation fleet for decades, and prospered.

Right up until the Southern Raiders got a new commander who needed to make a name for himself. It was pretty hard to find rebels by then, nevermind waterbenders.

But hey, look at this little town, with is uppity tribesmen acting like they were real citizens. Sure would be a shame if someone broke that. Especially since the Raiders were largely done in the South, and didn’t need a little town to blow off steam in any more…

Panuk’s mother had married into the town. Partly for love, partly because it was the only place where the Fire Nation had a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy on waterbenders. Basically: she went there looking for a husband, found one, settled down. His dad fully embraced her merchantile spirit. Her own family disowned her.

Flashforward a few years, to the town’s destruction. Panuk’s Uncle, the Chief of an inland herding tribe, was less than pleased when this traumatized little traitor child showed up claiming to be his nephew.

Panuk is on Hakoda’s ship because his uncle couldn’t get rid of him fast enough, and Hakoda wasn’t sure how many other captains would give the kid a fair chance to prove himself.

Panuk had very few friends before Toklo. He is very good at keeping his own council. And those silvery beads in his hair are steel. Fire Nation steel, given to him by a nice officer who traded trinkets with children under one commander, and burned towns under another.

He remembers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #the officer took his time killing adults #so that the children they'd hidden could sneak out and run before the buildings were set on fire #salvage #Panuk is aware of what that man did and why he did it #and HATES him for it #while owing his life to it

**Author's Note:**

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